Yellowstone National Park Press Release
MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS, Wyo. — Yellowstone National Park (YNP) announced today that it would resume the Soda Butte Creek Native Fish Restoration Project near the Northeast Entrance to remove newly discovered nonnative brook trout.
Soda Butte Creek will be closed Aug. 14 to 18 so biologists can remove brook trout before they can displace native Yellowstone cutthroat trout, which are the only trout species native to the Park. The closure will run for 9.6 miles from the park boundary at the Northeast Entrance to Ice Box Canyon. Warm Creek and Soda Butte Creek picnic areas will be closed for project staging. See the map below for details.
Cutthroat trout will be taken out of the creek and held in the creek’s upper untreated tributaries starting next week ahead of the closure. They will be released back into the creek once the brook trout have been removed.
YNP is reviving the fish restoration project that concluded in 2016 after nonnative brook trout were successfully removed from the creek. According to the Park, brook trout could invade the entire Lamar River watershed and threaten the largest remaining population of Yellowstone cutthroat trout in existence.
According to YNP, cutthroat trout “are the most ecologically important fish of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and are highly regarded by anglers. Genetically pure Yellowstone cutthroat trout populations have declined throughout their natural range in the Intermountain West, succumbing to competition with and predation by nonnative fish species, a loss of genetic integrity through hybridization, habitat degradation and predation.”
Learn more about the Soda Butte fish restoration and ongoing preservation efforts at Native Fish Conservation Program.
