Madison River/Ennis Reservoir fisheries and Madison River drainage westslope cutthroat trout conservation and restoration program : 2000 annual report to PPL Montana, Environmental Division, Butte and Turner Enterprises, Inc., Bozeman PDF
Preview Madison River/Ennis Reservoir fisheries and Madison River drainage westslope cutthroat trout conservation and restoration program : 2000 annual report to PPL Montana, Environmental Division, Butte and Turner Enterprises, Inc., Bozeman
639.31 F2ermr 2000 C.2 MadisonRiver/EnnisReservoirFisheries and MadisonRiverDrainageWestslopeCutthroatTroutConservationand RestorationProgram 2000AnnualReport to PPLMontana EnvironmentalDivision Butte and TurnerEnterprises,Inc. Bozeman offlTEDOCUMENTSCOLLECTION MAYU62002 Montanastatelibrary HELEN1A5,15MEO.N6T1AhNAAVE5.9520 by PatClanceyandDanDowning MontanaFish,Wildlife,&Parks Ennis April2001 MONTANASTATELIBRARY 308640015 4159 1 EXECUTIVESUMMARY TheFederalEnergyRegulatoryCommissionissuedtheoperatinglicenseforPPLMontana’s2188 Projectin2000. Noyoung-of-the-yearArcticgraylingwerecapturedinEnnisReservoirin2000. Populationsoftwoyearold&olderrainbowtroutinthePineButteandVarneymonitoringsections increasedmarkedlyduetorelativelyhighsurvivalofthe1998cohort,andyearlingrainbowtrout numbersinthePineButteandVarneysectionswerehighforthesecondconsecutiveyear. Thetwo yearold&olderrainbowtroutpopulationdecreasedslightlyintheNorrissection. Twoyearold& olderbrowntroutnumbersremainedhighinthePineButteandVarneysections,butdecreasedin Norris. Whirlingdiseaseresearchersbelievethatriverdischargemaybeascriticalasanyother variable,includingwatertemperature,indetermininginfectionrateandseverity. Water temperaturewasmonitoredat14sitesthroughouttheMadisonRiver,andairtemperatureat7sites. TheNewZealandMudSnailwasdetectedintheupperMadisonRiverbelowQuakeLakeandin DariintonDitch,aspringcreekalongthelowerMadisonRiver. Theappealfiledagainstthe MontanaDepartmentofEnvironmentalQualitypermitsfortheCherryCreekNativeFish IntroductionProjectwasdismissedbytheMontanaBoardofEnvironmentalReviewinSeptember, buttheappellantsfiledlitigationinbothstateandfederaldistrictcourts. TABLEOFCONTENTS Introduction 1 Methods 3 MadisonGrayling 3 PopulationEstimates 3 WhirlingDisease 3 TemperatureMonitoring 7 BiologicalandBiocontaminantMonitoring 7 WestslopeCutthroatTroutConservation andRecovery 9 ResultsandDiscussion 10 MadisonGrayling 10 PopulationEstimates 10 WhirlingDisease 14 TemperatureMonitoring 15 BiologicalandBiocontaminantMonitoring 17 WestslopeCutthroatTroutConservation andRecovery 17 ConclusionsandFuturePlans 19 LiteratureCited 21 INTRODUCTION MontanaFish,Wildlife,&Parks(MFWP)hasconductedfisheriesstudiesintheMadison RiverDrainagesince1990toassessandimprovethestatusoftheArcticgrayling(Thymallus arcticus)populationofEnnisReservoir,andtoaddresseffectsofhydropoweroperationsatHebgen andEnnisdamsonfisheries(ByorthandShepard1990,MFWP1995.MFWP1996,MFWP1997a, MFWP1998.MFWP1999a,MFWP2000). Thisworkhasbeenfundedthroughanagreement, initiallywithMontanaPowerCompany(MPC),nowwithPPLMontana,ownerandoperatorofthe dams. TheoriginalagreementbetweenMFWPandMPCwasdesignedtoanticipaterelicensing requirementsforMPC'shydropowersystemontheMadisonandMissouriRivers,whichincludes HebgenandEnnisdams,asw'ellassevendamsontheMissouriRiver(Figure1). PPLMontana hasmaintainedthecoursesetbyMPC,andconvenedseveralcommitteestoaddressfisheries, wildlife,waterquality,andrecreationissuesrelatedtotheoperationofthehydropowerfacilitieson theMadisonandMissouririvers. ThesecommitteesarecomposedofrepresentativesofPPL Montanaandseveralagencies. TheMadisonFisheriesTechnicalAdvisoryCommittee(TAC)is composedofpersonnelofPPLMontana,MFWP,theU.S.Fish&WildlifeService(USFWS),the U.S.ForestService(USFS).andtheU.S.BureauofReclamation(BLM). Eachentityhasequal authorityindecisionmakingwithintheTAC. Collectively,theninedamsontheMadisonand Missouririversarecalledthe2188Project,whichreferstotheFederalEnergyRegulatory Commission(FERC)licensenumberthatauthorizestheiroperation. TheFederalEnergy RegulatoryCommissionissuedPPLMontanaalicensetooperatethe2188Projectfor40years (FederalEnergyRegulatoryCommission2000). ThelicensedetailsthetermsandconditionsPPL Montanamustmeetduringthelicenseterm,includingfish,wildlife,andrecreationprotection, mitigation,andenhancementmeasures. Latein1996,MFWPinitiatedaten-yearprogramentitled“TheMadisonRiverDrainage WestslopeCutthroatTroutConservationandRestorationProgram”. Thegoalofthiseffortisto conserveandrestorethenativewestslopecutthroattrout(Oncorhynchusclarkilewisi)inthe MadisonRiverdrainage. Fieldworkforthiseffortbeganin1997intributariesoftheMadison River. TheagreementbetweenMFWPandPPLMontanaincludesprovisionstoaddressissues regardingspeciesofspecialconcern. InJune1997,theUSFWSreceivedapetitiontolistthe westslopecutthroattroutasaThreatenedspeciesthroughoutitsentirerange,whichincludesparts ofMontana,Idaho,Oregon,Washington,andWyoming. Sixconservation/environmental organizationsandoneindividualfiledthepetition. TheUSFWSruledinApril2000thatlisting wasnotwarranted,andthepetitionersfiledalawsuitchallengingthatdecisioninOctober2000. Inrecognitionoftheseverityofthesituationfacedbythewestslopecutthroattrout,andin keepingwiththephilosophyofpromotingnativespeciesontheirlands,TurnerEnterprises, Incorporated(TEI)offeredaccesstotheCherryCreekdrainageontheFlyingDRanchtoassessits suitabilityforintroducingwestslopecutthroat. MFWPdeterminedin1997thatintroducing westslopecutthroattoCherryCreekisfeasible,butwouldrequiretheremovalofallnon-native troutpresentlyinthatportionofthedrainage. MFWP,TELandtheGallatinNationalForest(GNF) subsequentlyenteredintoanagreementtopursuethiseffort. Theagreementoutlinestherolesand responsibilitiesofeachparty,includingtheGNF,whichmanagesthepubliclandattheupperend oftheCherryCreekdrainage. 1 GreatFalls Complex# Morony Ryan Cochrane Rainbow BlackEagle > HolterDam xHauserDam \ River Q / ©A /</ % \ Ennis 7<0 Dam CD Q. COO :n 1 HebgenDam 0. •^vf- Vv^' Figure1. LocationsofPPLMontanadamsontheMadisonandMissouririvers. 2 METHODS MadisonGrayling IndexsitesinEnnisReservoir(Figure2)aresampledforyoung-of-the-yeargraylingand otherfishspeciesusingabeachseine. A125’x5’x‘A”meshseinewitha5'x5’x5'bagisfed offamovingboatinwateruptofivefeetdeep,withaworkerinthewaterateachendofthe seine. Theseineispulledparalleltotheshorelineforsomedistance,thenontotheshoreline wherecapturedfishareenumeratedbyspecies. Ifbedsofmacrophytes(aquaticplants)are presentandaccessible,theseineispulledthroughthem. PopulationEstimates Electrofishingfromadriftboatmountedmobileanodesystemistheprinciplemethodused tocaptureMadisonRivertroutforpopulationestimates. Fishcapturedforpopulationestimatesare weighedandmeasured,markedwithafinclip,andreleased. Alog-likelihoodstatisticalanalysis (MFWP1997b)isusedtoestimatetroutpopulationsinseveralsectionsoftheMadisonRiver (Figure3). Yearlingfisharedistinguishedfromtwoyearold&olderfishbytakingascalesample fromuptotenofeachspeciesperhalf-inchgroup,makinganimpressionofthescaleinacetate, projectingtheimpressiononamicrofichereader,andinterpretingtheageofthefishfromthescale impression. Generally,thenumberoftwoyearold&olderfishisabetterindicatorofyearclass strengthandsubsequentreproductivepotential. Yearlingnumbersserveasanafter-the-fact measureoftheimpactofwhirlingdiseaseonreproductivesuccessthepreviousyear. Because agingisnotcompletefor2000estimatesinthePineButteandVarneysections,fishfrom5.0to9.9 inchesareusedtoestimateyearlingabundance,andfishlargerthan9.9inchesareassumedtobe two-year-old&older. Theactualestimatemaychangeafteragingiscompleted. WhirlingDisease Whirlingdisease(Myxoboluscerebralis)monitoringandresearchwerecontinuedinthe MadisonRiverin2000. Sentinelfishlive-cagestudieswereagainconductedintheMadison Riveratestablishedsites.Cagescontaining60young-of-the-yearrainbowtroutwereplacedat selectedlocationsformultiple10-dayperiodstoconducttime-series. Thetime-seriestestswere conductedattheKirbysitefrommid-Aprilthroughmid-July. Four3000-footsectionsofriverbank(Figure4)weresampledinJuly,August,and October,2000,inanefforttorelaterearinghabitatqualitytoinfectionseverityandtomonitorfry densityintheperiodduringwhichfryaremostlikelytosuccumbtowhirlingdisease. 3 Figure2. LocationsofEnnisReservoirseiningsites. 4 JEFFERSON GALLATINRIVER RIVER / Figure3. LocationsofMontanaFish,Wildlife,&Parks2000MadisonRiverpopulation estimatesections. 5 EnnisReservoir HebgenReservoir Grizzly EagleNest ** PineButte 10 12 Miles Figure4. LocationsofMadisonRiveryoung-of-the-yearmonitoringsections,2000. 6
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