GR students participate in Adopt-a-Trout program

Green River seventh-and eighth-grade students are taking part in a real-world study done by the Green River Trout Unlimited group and the Game and Fish Department. Oct. 22 was the kick-off event for the students, at Firehole, at Flaming Gorge Reservoir.

The students went through four stations, learning about the study they will be a part of through the school year the Adopt-a-Trout program.

Trout Unlimited in conjunction with the Wyoming Game and Fish have put on the Adopt-a-Trout program annually since 2007. Out of those programs, 24 of them have been part of real-world migratory studies with about 20 school districts through out the state. The students are assigned their own tagged fish and get to follow their fish's migration patterns through out the school year.

This year, the students will adopt tagged Burbot fish caught in the Flaming Gorge Reservoir. Burbot, also known as ling, are an invasive species of the Flaming Gorge and have negatively impacted the Brown Trout population in the reservoir, a natural species to the area. Tracking the Burbot, which the students will take part in, will aid Trout Unlimited and the Wyoming Game and Fish in developing a plan on where to go next in the Burbot removal program and in turn help the population of the Brown Trout.

"That's kind of the point of these studies, is there real questions that the Game and Fish wants answered," Nick Walrath of Trout Unlimited said. "And we want a real study that's actually going to answer questions that both Trout Unlimited and the Game and Fish need to improve the fishery and to better manage it."

During the kickoff day's events, the students split into groups at four stations to learn and experience actual procedures done to track fish, including fish tagging, telemetry, fish sampling and food web.

At the fish tagging station, the students witnessed a tag planted into a live fish. At the telemetry station, the students used actual telemetry equipment to track different tags. The tags that are planted into the Burbot are radio telemetry tags. The radio transmission makes a sound signifying the proximity of a tag. At the fish sampling station, the students had to pick caught fish out of nets used to capture Burbot. The food web station taught the students what the organism food web is in the reservoir. They looked at the various foods available for fish in the reservoir, including plankton. At the station, they dissected Burbot fish to discover what the fish had eaten, what was in its stomach.

After the kickoff day, Walrath will visit the classrooms and continue to educate the students about the fishery and the study they are taking part in, building on what the students have learned through the year. The students will also keep track of their tagged fish throughout the year.

"They'll have real-world experience with an actual study that means something, instead out of the textbook," Walrath said. "And then they'll have better knowledge of what's going on in the river that runs through their community."

The real-world questions Trout Unlimited and Game and Fish are looking for answers for with the study are, if Burbot in the Flaming Gorge use the Green River as a spawning tributary, how Brown Trout move in the system and how the Trout Unlimited and the Game and Fish can assist them, and finally, how they can target and remove the Burbot better.

"We want to better manage the Burbot population," Walrath said. "Remove more Burbot and help out the Brown Trout population."

Walrath said the study will help them better understand where the Burbot move seasonally, if they gather in a certain area, and if they use certain habitat types. As for the Brown Trout, they will know what type of habitat they need and if they can replicate it in the future.

"Science isn't one size fits all. You're probably going to have more questions," Walrath said. "We'll better understand the system as a whole and how those two fish populations, one, interact, and two, interact within the gorge."