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Burbot recovery a collaborative effort |
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April 10, 2017 |
By T.J. Ross
IDFG Senior Fisheries Research Biologist
Burbot are a unique fish species native to the
Kootenai Basin. The population there declined
drastically beginning in the 1960s due to many
factors, including overfishing, dam operations
and land changes. Harvest fisheries were closed
in the basin by the mid-1990s and remain closed
today.
Staff from the Idaho Department of Fish and Game
(IDFG), Kootenai Tribe of Idaho (KTOI), and
British Columbia Ministry of Forest, Lands, and
Natural Resource Operations (BCMFLNRO) have been
collaborating to restore the burbot population
in the Kootenai Basin since the early 2000s.
One key component of the burbot recovery effort
is a conservation aquaculture program that is
run by KTOI. Basically, this involves collecting
eggs from wild burbot and raising them in a
hatchery until they can be stocked back into the
wild as juveniles. The goal is to rebuild the
burbot population in the Kootenai Basin.
However, this strategy requires an egg source
from another more abundant burbot population.
Fortunately, a healthy burbot population exists
in nearby Moyie Lake, British Columbia.
ish in this population are genetically similar
to the population in the Kootenai Basin.
Therefore, each year, IDFG, KTOI, and BCMFLNRO
collect fertilized eggs from Burbot in Moyie
Lake to raise in a KTOI hatchery and then
release into the Kootenai Basin.
This is a big effort and requires a crew of
15-25 individuals spending two weeks in February
on Moyie Lake. During these two weeks, adult
burbot are collected by ice fishing and
under-ice netting. Adults that are collected are
then spawned and released alive back into Moyie
Lake.
Fertilized eggs are transported to a KTOI-owned
and operated hatchery where they are incubated,
hatched, raised for six months, and then
released into the Kootenai River and Kootenay
Lake with the goal of building a self-sustaining
and harvestable burbot population in years to
come.
Check out this
You Tube video to see some highlights of the
work that went into collecting and spawning
Burbot during February 2017.
This work would not be possible without close
collaboration among IDFG, KTOI, BCMFLNRO, U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers, the University of Idaho
Aquaculture Research Institute, and funding from
the Bonneville Power Administration. |
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