On May 25th, 2017 at 12:30pm, we walked around the town of Livingston, Montana. Our first impression of Livingston was that it was a similar size to Gardiner. However, we overheard people talking on the street about the overpopulation in Livingston so we looked up how much bigger it is. Gardiner has a population of 875 people, while Livingston has a population of 7,044 people. This was very surprising to us because Livingston did not feel much bigger than Gardiner. The town had an old-timey feel because of the state of the buildings and some of the structures in town. We also noticed that the shops throughout town all had art that revolved around trout. We really liked the art because our group is studying trout, but we didn’t understand why it was all over. Our guess is that Livingston is a big fishing town, but we didn’t have a chance to ask anyone.
Our group had our oral history interview in Livingston, so we did not have more than 20 minutes to explore the town unfortunately. However, we did our interview with Orville Bach who has been a season ranger for 43 years. Before the interview, we told him that our issue was about the lake trout and cutthroat trout issue and he was very interested in what we had learned already. During the interview, he then told us that the introduction of the lake trout was one of the worst things he had seen happen to the park in his time as a ranger. He strongly supports the repopulation of cutthroat trout, which was fascinating because he has worked in the park for so long and his view is still in line with all of the younger people we have talked to while on this trip.
Livingston was definitely a very interesting little town and we learned a lot during our short stay there. Whether it was just roaming the streets of Livingston while we had a little bit of spare time, or having our interview with Orville, there was definitely a lot learned. However, we wish that we would have had more time to explore the town and hope that sometime in the future we will be able to go back and visit Livingston. Our interview with Orville definitely helps us out with our stewardship and other insights into the park.
To view pictures of our short journey through Livingston, click the link below!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kzkwqtrkvPh8u-Mu-4ncBf2L2mBM13rZR_90OexnRfs/edit?usp=sharing
#LakeTroutOut
Hello World!
On May 25th, 2017 at 8:30am we explored the small town of Gardiner, Montana. The area that we explored was the road our hotel is off of (S 2nd St.) and to the left on E Park St. towards the Yellowstone River. In this area there was a fish shop, a gift shop, restaurants, a factory, and residential homes. We noticed that at this time of the morning many of the stores and restaurants were not open yet. We had to walk around outside until 9:00am for things to open up. We also noticed that not many locals were out in Gardiner that early in the morning. We all noticed that there were lots of tourists out and were very curious about it. Once the stores opened we realized that the locals were all the people who had been preparing the stores for the tourists.
We first went to Parks Fly Shop to talk to the two men who worked there, Wally and Ben. We told them about our stewardship question regarding the repopulation of cutthroat trout. They told us that generally, people were in favor of the repopulation of the cutthroat trout in the Yellowstone River. We asked them about the removal policies of the lake trout and they told us about the catch kill policy at Yellowstone Lake. None of us knew what this was and they explained that if you catch a lake trout from Yellowstone Lake, you are required to kill it or keep it, instead of throwing it back in the lake. Wally then brought up the fact that lake trout are only an issue in Yellowstone Lake and are actually welcomed in other areas.
After we finished talking with Ben and Wally we went to Yellowstone Gifts and Sweets and spoke to one of their employees, Alex. She is from Bulgaria and told us that she came to Gardiner through a work program. She likes it a lot here and says that it is a very different environment for her because she is from the capital of Bulgaria. We asked her what the biggest issues were in the park that she knew of and she told us she only knew a little bit about the issues with the wildlife in the park. She didn’t know much because she has only been hiking a couple of times since she moved to Gardiner. She was very interested in our program and asked us a lot about it. After talking to her, we looked around the shop for a bit. She was very helpful while we were browsing.
We really enjoyed our exploration of Gardiner, especially the place we found at the end. We found a small pavilion on the edge of the hill where you had an amazing view of the scenery. Having a chance to see the amazing view that that the locals in Gardiner have every day was the perfect way to end our exploration of Gardiner.
To view pictures of our journey through Gardiner, click on the link below!!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/11Dzfw_dAN_JlxD8STQ2_GvnmC2IN2EKy9F6b96evECQ/edit?usp=sharing
#LakeTroutOut
Yesterday we visited the Jackson National Fish Hatchery which is run by the US Fish and Wildlife service. We took a tour of the facility and learned a lot about the Snake River cutthroat trout that they’re raising. The facility artificially spawns the trout and cares for the eggs until they hatch. The eggs are very small, orange, and have a black dot that is the fish’s eyes. The eggs are put in an incubator for 3 weeks until they hatch and once the eggs have hatched, the trout are moved into a larger tank where about 6,000 fish are kept. They’re raised in the tank until it becomes overcrowded, which is a problem because it stresses out the fish. They are then moved into the raceways where about 25,000 fish are kept. They raise the fish for about a year and a half. At this point the trout are about 8in long and are ready to be released. The hatchery releases them into the Palisades Reservoir, which leads upstream into the Snake River. The Jackson National Fish Hatchery adds these trout into the Reservoir and therefore the Snake River as part of a repopulation effort. According to Mike, our guide, a dam was built in the 1950’s at the reservoir which disrupted the spawning area of the trout. The hatchery was created in order to make up for the loss of the spawning area.
On May 23rd, 2017 at 4pm, we embarked on a journey through a section of Jackson, Wyoming. The area of Jackson that we explored was a residential area with a fairground, a park, and a brewery. The houses in the residential areas were mostly wooden homes and were all shorter homes. We believe that the houses are shorter due to an ordinance that protects the view of the landscape. The park that we passed was Karns Meadow Park. The park had lots of grass and some marshy areas. The fairground was very large and included a dirt area for trading tents, vendors, and a large rodeo ring with seating. We found out that when the fair is occurring, the rodeo ring is mostly used for bull riding and that cowboys will come from out of town to participate. The final major place in the area was the Snake River Brewery. It is currently under construction because they’re expanding their seating area and creating a fire pit and put putt courses outside the front of the brewery. The purpose of the construction is to create more activities for tourists and locals at the brewery.
While at the brewery we spoke with one of the hostesses named Shannon. She is from Rhode Island and she worked on a guest ranch one summer in college and fell in love with the area. She moved back to Jackson about a year ago and currently works at the Snake River Brewery and the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. When asked what the biggest issue in Jackson is Shannon responded that it was housing. She told us about how the apartments and houses are extremely expensive in Jackson and many people can’t afford to rent them. She said that the resort provides limited housing for employees, but that not many other businesses do the same. Shannon also mentioned that some people choose to pay the rent on expensive apartments during the winter, but camp all summer and get a gym membership so that they can shower.
When we returned to our hotel (Elk Country Inn) we spoke with one of the employees at the front desk named Braden. We asked him about the housing issue and he agreed that it was extremely expensive in Jackson and that many people struggled to find homes close to their place of employment. Another employee at the front desk chimed in that on average rent was “$1500 for a one bedroom apartment” per month. Braden then said that when he first began working at the Elk Country Inn the hotel provided housing for the employees that needed it, though it was very crowded. Braden asked us what our group was specifically studying so we told him about our investigation about the repopulation of cutthroat trout. He told us that he fishes a lot and agreed with the repopulation of the cutthroat trout because otherwise the issue will just get worse.
Our journey through Jackson was very exciting and definitely a learning experience. Whether it was us talking to the locals and trying to get a better understanding of the town, or us just walking around and observing all of the spectacular views and buildings. Actually going out into the environment itself was definitely the best way to be able to fully grasp the area and to fully get an understanding of everything going on in Jackson.
To view pictures we took on our exploration of Jackson, click on the link below!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mbtFTMvh4vGX7qvwicE3jM0z6lZsZZYuyxmM1Sd077I/edit?usp=sharing
Overview
The cutthroat trout are a native species to Yellowstone National Park. The trout are originally a Pacific drainage species, their travel into the Yellowstone area was likely through the Two Oceans Pass. In addition to being a native species to the park, the cutthroat trout are very important to the parks ecosystem. They feed on macroinvertebrates and are eaten by mammals and about 20 different species of birds. Cutthroat trout usually reach maturity at about 4 or 5 years old and once they have reached this point they spawn from February to May. The cutthroat trout can live for about 10 years, but they generally only live long enough to spawn once or twice.
In addition to the park having cutthroat trout, the park was also home to a deadly parasite that at one point in time lead to the death of thousands of fish, including the Cutthroat Trout. Tetracapsuloides bryosalmonae was a parasite that would cause the fish to get proliferative kidney disease, which would lead to abdominal swelling and also pale gills. This parasite in fact was so dangerous to fish that almost all fish obtaining the disease from the parasite would end up dying. In addition to the parasite killing off a large majority of the fish population, this also lead to the closure of an 183 mile long stretch of the Yellowstone River. When a section of a river that large gets cut off from human use, more than just the wildlife ends up getting affected too. Businessmen have said that during the couple of weeks that the river was closed, they lost upwards of $100,000, due to the lack of expeditions that were allowed during that time.
The increased presence of lake trout in Yellowstone National Park has been a problem people have been trying to solve since their introduction. The lake trout can live through two or three generations of the cutthroat trout and can grow to weigh four times more than the cutthroat trout. The lake trout spawn eight to ten years in a row whereas the cutthroat trout only spawn once or twice during its lifetime. The lake trout are overpopulating the cutthroat and making them go extinct. The lake trout produces 1,000 eggs per kilogram of their body weight. Some lake trout can produce 20,000 eggs. Once the lake trout are born, they are competing for the same food sources as the cutthroat trout. When the lake trout reaches four years old, they also begin to eat the cutthroat trout, which becomes half of their diet. An adult lake trout can eat about fifty of the cutthroat trout within a year.
The removal processes of the lake trout is the main effort to repopulate the cutthroat trout. One of the processes of removal for the lake trout is through deep water and spawner netting. This process involves dropping nets with the intent of catching lake trout to remove them from the environment. The deep water netting is used to catch younger lake trout before they reach sexual maturity. Spawner netting is used to catch the trout as the fish gather to spawn. In 2007, 63,776 lake trout were removed, but the lake trout population still continued to increase. We are looking to find out how the people who live in the areas near Yellowstone feel about the removal of these lake trout and whether they would want to contribute to their removal or any additional repopulation of the cutthroat trout.
Get Involved!
If you would like to contribute to our conversation about the repopulation of cutthroat trout or the removal of lake trout feel free to comment on our blog or use the hashtag #laketroutout on Twitter or Instagram. We will be continuing to gain and add information to our blog, so we welcome you to share any information you may find!
Additional Sources
“Yellowstone River Fish Kill Fact Sheet”
http://fwp.mt.gov/news/newsReleases/closures/waterbodies/nr_106.html
“Native Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout in Wyoming Need Your Help!”
http://wyomingtu.org/2014/01/27/native-yellowstone-cutthroat-trout-in-wyoming-need-your-help/
“Yellowstone Lake Cutthroat Trout Threatened by Non-native Lake Trout”
http://www.yellowstonepark.com/yellowstone-lake-cutthroat-trout-threatened-by-non-native-lake-trout/
“Preservation of Yellowstone Lake Cutthroat Trout”
https://www.nps.gov/yell/planyourvisit/upload/fishar9-18.pdf
“After thousands of fish die in the Yellowstone River, officials lift boating bans”
“Persistence of Tetracapsuloides bryosalmonae (Myxozoa) in chronically infected brown trout Salmo trutta”
We are trout Team 2 and we’re studying Trout and other aquatic invasive species in Yellowstone National Park. This post is so that everyone following our adventure can get to know our pack members!
My name is Anna Knapp and I’m a rising Junior from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I’m a Liberal Studies: Elementary Education major with a Spanish minor and I am very excited for the LU@YNP experience. I’ve wanted to go on this trip since I heard about it my freshman year. I think it will be a once in a lifetime way to experience Yellowstone while also taking a college class. As a future teacher, this class is exciting to me because it has a unique way of teaching students through the national park.
My name is James Bigler and I am a rising 5th year senior from Alexandria, Virginia. I am a Business major with a double concentration in Accounting and Information Systems and Security. In my spare time I enjoy working out and training for triathlons, with me having completed sprint, olympic and half-iron distance races. This trip to Yellowstone truly seems like a neat experience and I am super excited that I am having the opportunity to be able to go out there and see all of the incredible things that the park has to offer!
My name is Tiffany Walton and I am a rising senior from Chesapeake, Virginia. I am a Psychology major who is planning on going into the field of Occupational Therapy and specializing in rehabilitation. At Longwood University I am part of many different organizations, which include Gamma Rho Lambda, Pride, and The Longwood Company of Belly Dance, and I am also a Head Student Supervisor at the Dorrill Dining Hall. I am really excited to be experiencing the LU@YNP project. I believe this will be a true delight and a one in a lifetime opportunity for me. The knowledge that I will gain on this trip will be quite unique and can’t be attained anywhere else.