Thursday, May 26, 2016
1
WYOMING OUTDOORS: Billings angler attacked by mama moose along Rock Creek B
n Field guide, 2
n Gear Junkie, 3
n Fishing report, 2
GET THE LATEST NEWS AND UPDATES AT BILLINGSGAZETTE.COM
Ann Marie Reinhold
Nate Laulainen
Fish captured in a trammel net in the Yellowstone River near Seven Sisters await being identified, counted, measured and released.
Page 3
Ann Marie Reinhold
The sun sets on the Yellowstone River. Reinhold spent more than 100 nights in a tent on the banks of the Yellowstone River in order to complete her field sampling.
Field technicians Elliot Johnson, left, and Caleb Mitchell seine the shoreline of the Yellowstone River near Billings. Seines effectively capture minnows and other small-bodied fishes.
Understanding the Yellowstone River 4-year-long study gives insight to fishery between Laurel, Sidney
only because they are native fish but because they provide forage for the gamefish out there,” said Ken Frazer, fisheries manager for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks for Region 5 based in Billings.
By BRETT FRENCH french@billingsgazette.com Everyone needs a port in a storm, even fish living in the Yellowstone River during spring runoff. For them, that port is a side channel. Just how important these places are to fish fascinated researcher Anne Marie Reinhold, who wrote her Montana State University graduate degree dissertation based on a fouryear study she conducted on the river between Laurel and Sidney from 2009-12. “It wasn’t surprising fish were using side channels for runoff, it was how many,” Reinhold said. “The trend was pretty neat.” “That’s certainly where the production and rearing takes place,” said Mike Backes, fisheries manager for Fish, Wildlife and Parks in Region 7 in Miles City. “That’s something we knew but nothing’s ever been written with those kinds of findings.” Using fyke nets, a type of trap, to capture fish, Reinhold found that the use of side channels by western silvery minnows was 20 to 35 times higher than that of the main channels during runoff, the greatest difference for any species she analyzed. “Those minnow species are critical, not
Side glance Fisheries biologists have long touted the benefit of side channels as a place for fish rearing because the shallow, calm backwaters give young fish and minnows a place to escape predation by larger fish. Many of these safe havens have disappeared on streams across the nation as river banks have been armored to reduce flooding and protect land. Reinhold used aerial imagery from the 1950s and compared them to photos from 2001 to document larger channels that have disappeared because of bank stabilization, floodplain dikes or even road construction. In all, she counted a loss of 67 side channels and a gain of 39. Another 91 channels remained stable. In all, that accounted for a 10 percent loss of side channels in terms of area and 18 percent in numbers. Since the study didn’t look at smaller channels or those traversing islands or midchannel bars, Reinhold said the cumulative loss could be even larger. Please see Yellowstone, B3
Bob Bramblett
Reinhold measures the length of a wounded sucker captured in a fyke net. Reinhold and a cadre of dedicated field technicians captured, identified and counted more than 300,000 fish as part of her four-year field campaign.
Fishery factoids There were 49 fish species found in the study area from 15 families. With the exception of smallmouth bass, introduced game species were fairly rare in the study area. During the study the crew captured 88,880 fish during early runoff, 66,811 fish during late runoff, and 113,069 fish during base flow. Western silvery minnow, longnose dace, and flathead chub were the three most widespread, commonly captured small fishes.
Reinhold, at right, collects and records water temperature, dissolved oxygen, conductivity, and turbidity while Nate Laulainen, left, finishes setting up a fyke net and Michael Moore prepares to gather water depth and velocity data in a Yellowstone River side channel near Hysham. Bob Bramblett
OUTDOORS JUST FOR KIDS
Some dogs hard-wired to work for food Our Labrador retrievers loved to eat. Our black Lab ate the strangest stuff, too: broccoli, carrots, apples, underwear and socks. Our chocolate Lab would occasionally get up on the kitchen counter and consume entire sticks of butter and loaves of bread, in addition to eating green tomatoes off the vine in the garden. We used to say they were stomachs on legs. Scientists have now said they’ve found a gene specific to Labrador retrievers that makes them more interested in food than other breeds of dogs. That means there are more fat Labs, but it also means they are suckers for being
trained for treats. That may be why you see so many Labradors being used as drug-sniffing dogs, or to provide assistance to blind people. Some of them will do anything for a little taste of kibble. Not all fat Labs have the gene — it was found in only about onequarter of the dogs tested — and not all skinny Labradors don’t have it. “You can keep a dog with this mutation slim, but you have to be a lot more on-the-ball — you have to be more rigorous about portion control, and you have to be more resistant to your dog giving you the big brown eyes,” said Eleanor Raffan, a veterinary surgeon
and geneticist at the University of Cambridge who previously studied human obesity before investigating dogs. “If you keep a really food-motivated Labrador slim, you should give yourself a pat on the back, because it’s much harder for you than it is for someone with a less food-motivated dog.” Studying the gene in dogs may someday lead to a better understanding of obesity in humans. Whether some humans are more likely to do tricks for treats, the study didn’t say. But parents have long used the promise of dessert to get children to eat all of their vegetables. — Brett French, Gazette Outdoors editor