The status of native fisheries restoration across the National Park Service (NPS) is a generally undocumented topic, in part due to the recentness of these efforts. This paper explores what the NPS is doing to restore native trout, measure the efficacy of such restoration efforts, identifies factors influencing success, and make recommendations to help the agency improve fishery restoration. Efforts to restore native salmonid species including bull trout (Salvelinus confluentus), Snake River fine-spotted cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii behnkei), westslope cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii lewisi), and Yellowstone cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii bouvieri) in Glacier National Park (GLAC), Grand Teton National Park (GRTE), and Yellowstone National Park (YELL) were analyzed. While measurable outcomes were hard to identify and success seemingly limited, this analysis highlights that YELL has carried out a disproportionately higher volume of restoration projects and has created more measurable benefits for native trout than the other parks. YELLs Native Fish Conservation Plan, an overarching policy that guides fishery management and sets goals for restoration, seems to be the driving force behind this success. Factors such as long-term funding, staffing, jurisdiction, and partnerships also appear to have a large influence over both the quantity and quality of restoration efforts in these parks. The NPS should mandate fishery restoration in agency-wide policy, conduct large-scale fishery surveys and research, make restoration efforts more integrated and holistic, secure long-term sources of funding, and carry out its mandate without hesitation in order to ensure a healthy future for native trout in the parks.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:MONTANA/oai:etd.lib.umt.edu:etd-12302013-151556 |
| Date | 07 February 2014 |
| Creators | Canetta, Michael John |
| Contributors | Jack Stanford, Daniel Spencer, Len Broberg |
| Publisher | The University of Montana |
| Source Sets | University of Montana Missoula |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.umt.edu/theses/available/etd-12302013-151556/ |
| Rights | restricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Montana or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
Page generated in 0.0014 seconds