Where’s whitey? Decline in mountain whitefish has biologists concerned
By BEN PIERCE Chronicle Outdoors
Five years ago there were pockets of water on the Madison River where you’d be hard pressed not to catch a mountain whitefish on a fly. On occasion, you’d literally have to sift through them to reach that elusive brown trout lurking at the bottom of the run.
Those days are beginning to feel like a distant memory for some Madison River anglers. And just recently, biologists are starting to ask why.
Last week, the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks, in conjunction with the Montana Cooperative Fishery Research Unit at Montana State University and the Madison River Foundation, launched an effort to assess the population of mountain whitefish in the Madison River. Establishing population estimates, spawning areas and age classes will help determine what’s happening to the whitefish and why.
“Anecdotal data suggests whitefish on the Madison are in decline,” said Christopher Guy, an MSU ecology professor working with the MCFRU. “I think it is a really important issue, not just with the state and federal agencies, but with anglers and outfitters that say they just can’t catch the whitefish.”
The mountain whitefish is a native species to Montana’s rivers and streams. The whitefish’s range extends across much of western Montana and east down the Yellowstone River drainage to Billings. Whitefish are commonly identified by their small mouth with no teeth, large silver scales and lack of spots. They are found in many of the same waters as rainbow and brown trout.
Mike Vaughn, FWP Region 3 fisheries biologist, said the decline in the whitefish population on the Madison came to light during routine trout surveys the department conducts each year.
“You could hardly net a trout in the past without netting a few whitefish,” Vaughn said, “and they are just not thick like that now and haven’t been in a few years.”
David Schmetterling, FWP fisheries research coordinator, said there are a lot of unknowns when it comes to mountain whitefish and the state needs to do a better job monitor their populations.
One of the biggest hurdles in assessing the mountain whitefish, Schmetterling said, has been dealing with the abundant numbers traditionally found on many Montana waters. Schmetterling said the equipment used to monitor trout populations may not be ideally suited to monitor whitefish because the species have numerous biological and behavioral differences.
Schmetterling said the decline on the Madison could be due to whirling disease, which decimated the river’s rainbow trout population in the mid 1990s, or other environment factors including loss of habitat and climate change. He also stressed that the decline could be due to a combination of factors.
Richard Lessner, executive director of the Madison River Foundation, said studies on whitefish have been limited because there hasn’t been the interest in the species there has been in trout, and numbers on the Madison and other rivers have historically been prolific.
“Whitefish are important to the overall ecology and health of the river,” Lessner said. “They occupy a niche in the food chain and provide food for eagles, osprey, otters and other animals. They also provide food for trout. If you have a dramatic drop in whitefish, you have a commensurate loss of food for trout.”
Lessner said there is a misconception among anglers that whitefish compete with trout and are a “trash fish,” noting the species evolved with cutthroat trout in the Madison and play a vital role in its biological makeup.
“Don’t squeeze them and throw them on the bank, and I say that only half facetiously” he said. “Return them to the river carefully. If you are killing whitefish, you are taking food out of the mouths of the trout. I think anglers would do well to treat them with respect.”
Guy said preliminary research on the Madison’s mountain whitefish population will focus on identify when whitefish become sexually mature, when and where the fish spawn, and what habitat fingerling whitefish seek out. Guy said electrofishing and radio telemetry may play a role in giving biologists an idea of the fish’s movements.
“Some of the things we look at when we start these studies are the number of females, the egg quality and whether or not they are spawning every year,” Guy said. “We are looking for where the bottleneck might be.”
While research on the decline of mountain whitefish in the Madison River is just getting under way, the concern about falling populations is widespread. Schmetterling said reports from numerous rivers in Montana and Idaho have suggested falling numbers of whitefish. He said precipitous declines have been observed on rivers in Colorado.
In addition to research on the Madison, FWP is conducting studies of whitefish populations on the Blackfoot River near Missoula and the Flathead River near Kalispell. Schmetterling said that assessing data from different regions of the state — and in areas where whitefish do not appear to be in decline — could provide clues to the root of the problem.
“The mountain whitefish could be the canary in the coal mine for what is going on in many of the rivers across the Intermountain West,” Guy said.
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