Fish and Game and Volunteers Restore Fish Habitat
Page Last Updated: Wednesday April 20, 2011 10:40pm MDT
Idaho Fish and Game |
Today at the old Cove Dam site Idaho Fish and Game along with dozens of volunteers released around 1000 Bonneville cutthroat trout into the wild as a final step in a project that began years ago. Joselin Matkins Director of Sagebrush Steppe Regional Land Trust explains why today was a great day for the partnership. Joselin Matkins, Director, “This is a great day for the partnership with PacifiCorp energy, Fish and Game, all the other partners at the Bear River Coordinating Committee because we released about 1000 Bonneville cutthroat trout into the stream today.”
David Teuscher, Regional Fisheries Manager for Idaho Fish and Game explains the vital role that the cutthroat trout have in the bear river ecosystem
David Teuscher, Regional Fisheries Manager, “The cutthroat trout play an important role, fish eating birds rely on fish resources so in the past native cutthroat trout filled all these streams and tributaries and they were food resources for other things like fish birds so the played an important role in a larger picture.”
Today is the culmination of years of hard work Fish and Game and volunteers have put in to restore the habitat of these fish.
But converting this once dam site to a useable habitat for the fish takes time and effort. Teuscher says many of these fish and game projects like this one would not be possible without the help of volunteers.
Teuscher, “So volunteers play a huge role in the amount of work we’re able to do because as you know labor and things are very expensive and we’re limited by how much we can do on an annual basis on budgets, the more volunteers we get the more work we can do.”
All the hard work and effort does pay off as an important investment in Idaho fisheries for the future.
Teuscher, “In two years when these fish come back upstream to spawn they’ll have that good spawning habitat.”
Those interested in volunteering for Idaho Fish and Game can find more information on their website.
