The mighty bull trout

Salmon make an epic journey, swimming hundreds of miles from the ocean to return to their birthplace.

To Tom Whalen, the shorter migration of Lake Pend Oreille’s bull trout is no less remarkable. He’s watched adult fish the size of small dogs fight their way through shallow mountain streams to return to spawning grounds high above the lake.

“You see these really large trout – pushing 20 pounds – going up these mountain tributaries. A quarter of the fish is sticking out of the water,” said Whalen, an Idaho Department of Fish and Game officer.

The fact that bull trout still spawn in Lake Pend Oreille’s tributaries is testament to two decades of cooperation between public and private partners. The species is in trouble throughout most of its range, but the Pend Oreille system has one of the West’s largest bull trout populations left – about 10,000 of the federally protected fish, which are listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act.

This spring, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will release a recovery plan for bull trout. Their need for the coldest and cleanest of Northwest waters makes the fish a bellwether for watershed health, and they’re also important predators in lakes and rivers without salmon.

“In these mountain lakes and streams, they’re the biggest, baddest fish around,” said Cecilia Brown, a fish biologist for the Bonneville Power Administration.

As the region embarks on efforts to save bull trout, there are lessons to be learned from Lake Pend Oreille. Officials credit the lake’s healthy bull trout numbers to committed partners, dedicated funding sources and education, among other things.

In his job as a senior conservation officer at Fish and Game, Whalen introduces Bonner County fifth-graders to bull trout during an annual spring water festival. Each fall, a few students also accompany him to the Trestle Creek tributary of Lake Pend Oreille to see the big fish in person.

As they approach spawning, the olive green fish are an impressive sight. A red stripe appears on their bellies; males develop an aggressive, hooked jaw.

“The very presence of bull trout tells you something,” Whalen said. “If you start to lose them, you know something is going wrong.”

Bull trout are indicative of wild places, just like grizzly bears and mountain goats, said Wade Fredenberg, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s regional bull trout coordinator for Western Montana and North Idaho.

People sometimes ask him why native fish are worth saving when lakes can be stocked with introduced species. Fredenberg’s reply: Being in bull trout range, and not having them present, would be like stripping Glacier National Park of its native wildlife.

“What if you drove up Going to the Sun Road, and all you saw were feral pigs?” he said.

Visitors would be outraged, he said, and the lack of native animals would be a telling indicator of the land’s condition. The same is true for bull trout and watersheds.

“These fish have very specific habitat needs,” Fredenberg said, “things that people associate with the word ‘pristine.’ ”

Pend Oreille still holds size world record

Bull trout were around during the last Ice Age, and their need for cold, clean water is part of that legacy. When the glaciers retreated, bull trout habitat moved to high-elevation mountain streams. Love strikes in these chilly headwaters; fish pair up in water temperatures not too far above freezing.

Two to three years after they hatch, young bull trout swim down to Lake Pend Oreille, where food is more abundant. They grow to adulthood in the lake before returning to tributary streams to spawn. Since the fish can live about 15 years, it’s a repeat trip.

“They’re like a salmon, and Lake Pend Oreille is their ocean,” said Tim Swant, Avista Corp.’s license manager for the utility’s Clark Fork River dams.

The lake still holds the world record for bull trout: a 32-pounder caught in 1949.

Bull trout’s pickiness over water quality put them at risk as the West developed, with logging, mining and other activities affecting streams. In the Pend Oreille system, dams and an introduced fish also took their toll.

When the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built Albeni Falls Dam on the Pend Oreille River in the 1950s, it blocked bull trout populations below the dam from getting to the lake.

Avista built two dams on the Clark Fork River in the same era, cutting off lake access for bull trout populations above the Cabinet Gorge and Noxon Rapids dams.

Meanwhile, an introduced species, the lake trout, made itself right at home in Lake Pend Oreille. Lake trout live longer than bull trout, which give them a reproductive advantage. The fish compete for the same food and habitat.

But the problems caused by the dams also created opportunities in terms of later funding.

Millions of dollars have been spent protecting and enhancing bull trout habitat over the past 15 years. Most of the money has come from Avista and BPA through settlements negotiated over the dams’ impact on fish and wildlife.

“Nobody can argue that the tributaries are in as good of a shape as they were 100 years ago,” said Jim Fredericks, Idaho Fish and Game’s regional fisheries manager. But more than 20 bull trout populations continue to spawn in tributaries between Albeni Falls and Cabinet Gorge dams. “It’s a very healthy picture,” he said.

The dam mitigation money also pays for programs targeting lake trout. Anglers can receive a $15 bounty for each lake trout they catch, and Idaho Fish and Game hires commercial gillnetters from the Midwest to harvest lake trout for local food banks.

Avista spends about $2.5 million annually on bull trout work as part of a 1999 federal relicensing settlement for its Clark Fork dams. The BPA has funded $8.5 million worth of bull trout projects in the Pend Oreille basin since 2008 and spent additional money on projects benefiting multiple fish species, including bull trout.

‘Bull Trout Song’ debuted last summer

Reconnecting bull trout populations blocked by the dams to Lake Pend Oreille remains a longer-term goal.

“The Lake Pend Oreille population is very strong, but we’re working to bolster the Clark Fork population in Montana so we don’t have all of our eggs in one basket,” said Avista’s Swant.

Last summer, the “Bull Trout Song” debuted at Sandpoint’s Trout and About Festival. The catchy country-western tune was written by a Missoula group, the Whizpops, to help kids and adults learn about the fish’s life cycle.

“We’re trying to get people to appreciate what’s around them,” said Whalen, the Idaho Fish and Game officer.

He’s also worked with Sandpoint High School’s industrial arts classes to create steel bull trout sculptures for the Sand Creek Bridge and build an information kiosk about the fish at City Beach. Students take pride in the fish sculptures, which have had very little vandalism.

Whalen thinks that educational outreach has helped reduce poaching and mistaken catch by anglers. But someday, he and others hope that bull trout will be legal in creels.

“We hope they get off the endangered species list, so people can enjoy fishing for them,” said Swant.