SOW_Swan_Lake_Trout_Suppression.pdf

STATEMENT OF WORK

Swan Lake Gillnetting

Strategic Priority: This project supports the range-wide Service goal of recovering threatened

Bull Trout (Salvelinus confluentus); and supports the MTESO Strategic Plan:

• Conservation Outcomes (WIG 1).

o Improve the Status of bull trout and its habitat in 3-5 years (Obj. 2).

▪ Complete specific tasks to benefit specific Bull Trout populations throughout the Columbia Headwaters Recovery Unit (Action 1b).

• Suppress non-native fish in priority locations in the Montana portion of the Columbia Headwaters Recovery Unit; implementing at least one non-native fish suppression or removal project per year, through the planning horizon, working with our state, tribal, NGO, and federal partners (task 4).

Montana harbors the ONLY Bull Trout populations in Region 6; and supports over 36% of the core areas within the range of the species, including 2 of the 6 Recovery Units.

Proposed Project: The Service proposes to contract with a qualified vendor to complete investigatory gillnetting on Swan Lake to evaluate the amount of effort needed to remove non-native lake trout on a mass scale in 2025, and thereby advance bull trout recovery. In preparation for lake trout suppression netting in 2025, the chosen vendor needs to conduct exploratory netting on Swan

Lake, between July 14, 2024 and July 2024to evaluate the extent of lake trout proliferation within the lake. Failure to implement will lead to increased proliferation of lake trout, which in turn prey upon and compete with threatened bull trout, and consequently a continued decline in bull trout status. Since the end of the experimental phase of the suppression program in 2016, lake trout numbers have increased and bull trout redd counts have declined.

The vendor will perform intensive fish sampling and monitoring on Swan Lake. Fish will be sampled using a vendor furnished gillnetting boat, operated by vendor employees who will set gill nets of various mesh sizes to capture lake trout. While net set times and locations may vary, vendor will set gill nets daily (M-F) to evaluate the extent and catchability of lake trout within Swan Lake.

While the primary goal is to assess the fishery, the specific objectives of the work will be to determine the amount of effort needed to harvest approximately 2kg/ha of adult lake trout, and 1.5 kg/ha of juvenile lake trout, while minimizing bull trout bycatch. Each day the vendor will perform gillnetting activities while a Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks technician will be aboard the boat to collect pertinent biological data such as lengths and numbers of fish, net type and amount deployed and retrieved, locations of net sets, and the collection of all pertinent data on bycatch bull trout.

Deliverables identified will be the intensive gillnetting of lake trout, the quantified amount of effort expended during gillnetting activities and the identification of effort needed to achieve the objectives listed previously.