HELENA — Today, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is announcing the availability of a draft Environmental Assessment for the Swan River Valley Bull Trout Recovery Project. The draft EA is open for a 30-day public comment period from Wednesday, June 12 to Thursday, July 11, 2024. The public can submit comments to MTBullTroutRecovery@fws.gov.
The Service intends to decide on recovery actions to increase bull trout (Salvelinus confluentus) populations in the Swan Lake, Lindbergh Lake, and Holland Lake core areas. These populations are threatened by nonnative lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush), which compete with, and are predators of bull trout, and have been identified as the most significant threat to bull trout recovery in the Swan River watershed in Montana.
The Swan River Valley Bull Trout Recovery Project aims to directly address this threat by reducing lake trout numbers to a manageable level, so they do not outcompete native bull trout. The proposed action is implementing lake trout suppression through an adaptive management strategy incorporating the best available scientific information. The draft Environmental Assessment available today describes the proposed action in detail, including the adaptive management strategy, and analyzes potential effects on fish, wildlife, recreation, and water quality.
The Service is working in close partnership with Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks on this project.
