Bounty on Rainbow Trout

After decades of encouraging catch and release, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game is now offering cash lures to anglers to get them to keep their catch of Rainbow Trout.

With help from Trout Unlimited, Idaho now offers a bounty on rainbows in the hopes of putting a dent in this non-native population. That's because rainbows are threatening to overtake a native species, the Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout.

For the first time Ever rainbows are outnumber native cutthroats in this 66-mile stretch of the south fork of the Snake River in eastern Idaho. Concerned over the future of Yellowstone Cutthroat across its historic range has triggered petitions to list the species as threatened. Now fisheries managers want anglers to remove more rainbows from the river.

"What we've seen from studies the past few years is about 50 percent of the rainbows and hybrids that anglers are catching were being released. And so we're using this incentive program to try to convince anglers to try to do the good thing for Yellowstone Cutthroat conservation and keep those fish that they've already caught.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Bounty
• on
• Rainbow
• Trout