GRAND TETON NATIONAL PARK — The Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGFD) announced that its team worked with staff from the Bridger-Teton National Forest, Grand Teton National Park (GTNP) and Trout Unlimited to transport nearly 900 green suckers from Oxbow Bend.
Fluctuating winter weather had trapped these fish along the legendary curve in the Snake River; while most of the bend had frozen solid, a shallow, spring-fed pool remained free of ice, WGFD said. The suckers were stuck, blocked in by ice and unable to return to the flowing part of the river.
To rescue the fish, WGFD biologists boarded rafts and used large nets to “gently herd” the fish, which were then “scooped” into coolers and transported away via snowmobile to be released upstream in a part of the river that was free of ice, the agency’s press release said.
“It does not appear that the conditions in the oxbow that stranded the green suckers were a result of any changes to outflow from Jackson Lake Dam,” WGFD wrote in the announcement.
All told, 891 green suckers were transported from the pool. WGFD staff fitted 43 of the rescued fish with Passive Integrated Transponder tags, which allow researchers to track movements and monitor growth.
A note on green suckers: WGFD calls it a non-game fish native to the state. Originally, these were assumed to be bluehead suckers, but WGFD said advancements in genetic testing have clarified that the green sucker is a distinct species.
“The Upper Snake River in Wyoming likely contains the majority of green suckers in existence,” Clark Johnson, Game and Fish fisheries biologist in the Jackson region, said in the announcement.
