Yellowstone Lake Invaders: Helping hands

Yellowstone Lake Invaders is part of a series that will take a look at the efforts to restore the Yellowstone cutthroat trout in Yellowstone Lake. "Helping Hand" is the final entry in the series.

By ALEX KUHN

Sports Editor

YELLOWSTONE - Lake trout have decimated the population of the Yellowstone cutthroat in Yellowstone Lake since 1994. In order to combat the nonnative species and restore the cutthroat to their rightful prominence, a serious undertaking has been afoot.

Battling the lake trout and other nonnative species in Yellowstone Lake takes plenty of time, money and manpower and there have been many people who have contributed in one way or another to the cutthroat's restoration.

Julia and George Argyros established a $500,000 grant through the National Park Foundation that goes to the Yellowstone Forever organization to help with their Native Fish Conservation Program (NFCP).

Headed by Yellowstone's chief fisheries biologist Todd Koel, the NFCP will put good use to the Argyoses' grant. They've shown what they can do with their $1 million grant by using gillnetting and other ingenious methods to suppress the lake trout population. And as a result, the cutthroat population has been on the uptick as well as their average size increasing too.

Another arm, or helping hand, in the mission to restore the cutthroat has been volunteers like Dave Sweet.

Sweet met Koel 11 years ago and that is when he learned just how serious the lake trout invasion was. Since then he's been helping by any means he can.

"We met 11 years ago in 2007 and that's when the situation out on Yellowstone Lake was introduced to our Trout Unlimited chapter. We felt like everything that could be done, should be done and we've taken off from there," said Sweet.

As the co-chair of the Yellowstone Lake Working Group, a coalition of groups looking to restore the cutthroat trout, and Yellowstone Lake Special Project manager for Wyoming Trout Unlimited, Sweet has raised over a million dollars for the cause while also sharing the progress that's been made.

"My role is heading up the Yellowstone Lake Working Group, we formed a partnership with a number of NGOs; Greater Yellowstone Coalition, Trout Unlimited of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, Yellowstone Forever and National Parks Conservations. We try to support their work both financially as well as general public relations work. We like to share what's being done and we also do fundraising. We've raised $1.1 million for the restoration," he said.

"Quite a bit of that money we've used to do telemetry studies - run through the USGS - to try and determine the movement patterns of the lake trout in the Lake," said Sweet. "Recently, and particularly, we've been looking for where they've been spawning. We've funded all of that work through donations and grants we've received."

Added Sweet, "I think it's been a tremendous aid to them in understanding the lake trout's movements, where they spawn and we've paid for the early egg suppression methods. It's a cooperative effort, my primary role is fundraising and public relations."

In June, Sweet took a week-long trip to the Thorofare of the Bridger Teton National Forest, where many of the Yellowstone River tributaries are. The purpose of the trip was to see if the cutthroat numbers were increasing. To his and all who have worked so tirelessly on this effort, the trip proved a great success.

Sweet found that the cutthroat were thriving and in his blog post at http://www.eastyellowstonetu.org he highlighted how anglers and other wildlife were enjoying the cutthroat's return to prominence.

"The other interesting part of the trip was the number of bald eagles (and pelicans) who were obviously also keyed in on the cutthroats... Anglers are also aware of the return as we saw several groups (both outfitted and on their own) experiencing this incredible fishery," wrote Sweet.

Seeing the results first hand and knowing all the work that's been poured into this project was absolutely rewarding for Sweet.

"There's been a huge amount of progress that's been incredibly gratifying. We've seen progress in the decline in the lake trout numbers and in particular, the adult lake trout numbers have declined for the last several years. This year we're seeing a major drop in juvenile lake trout numbers and the cutthroat have recovered as a result of that," said Sweet.

While progress has been made, just like Koel, Sweet isn't ready to declare victory. There's still work to be done and ideas on how to suppress the lake trout once the overall goal is met still need to be figured out.

And just as it has been, it's going to continue to require a group effort.

"Once you introduce a foreign or invasive species like that into a system there is basically never an end because you can never get all of them out. So you have to continue to suppress. The Park Service has made tremendous progress over the years. It's a huge team effort," said Sweet.

If you'd like to donate to the NFCP or another Yellowstone Forever conservation project you can donate at http://www.yellowstone.org/what-we-do/current-projects/wildlife-wonders-wilderness/.