Kootenai tribe releases another batch of burbot
—Photo by DAC COLLINS Burbot specialist Nathan Jensen holds up a dip net full of juveniles. At this point, the fingerlings have spent approximately nine months in a holding tank at the Kootenai tribe’s hatchery in Moyie Springs. It will take at least a few days for these fish to acclimate to the river, which is a vast, wide-open environment compared to the manmade ponds at the hatchery.
-Photo by DAC COLLINS A group of children help the tribe release fish into the Kootenai river. After scooping the burbot out of a bucket with a dipnet, the kids dump them into the river and then herd the fish towards deeper water. Some of the fingerlings weren’t quite fast enough and fell victim to the herders’ rubber boots.
The Kootenai Tribe of Idaho conducted its annual burbot release at the public Search and Rescue boat ramp in Bonners Ferry on Friday, Oct. 14. A number of Boundary County residents, mostly youngsters, came out to assist the tribe members and fisheries experts as they released approximately 2 thousand juvenile burbot into the Kootenai river.
According to the tribe’s burbot specialist Nathan Jensen, the burbot reintroduction program officially began in 2009 when the first hatchery-raised burbot were released into the Kootenai. Since then, the tribe — in a collaboration with British Columbia’s government, Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks, and Idaho Fish and Game — has continued the yearly release each fall in hopes of restoring the populations of the once prolific, native species to the lower Kootenai river in Idaho and to Kootenai Lake in British Columbia.
Jensen says that it was around the beginning of the 21st century when scientists realized that the species was functionally extinct in the Kootenai river. This was all the motivation the tribe needed, and in 2003 tribe members started forming a conservation strategy for the fish that we see continuing today.
One of the primary reasons for the widespread decline in burbot numbers in the lower Kootenai during the 20th century was the installation of Libby Dam in the early 1970’s. According to Jensen, the dam altered water temperatures and flows, cut off migratory routes, and most importantly, it had the effect of channelizing the river. The burbot, which depend on these off-channel areas for rearing habitat, were severely affected by this channelization, a proccess that was also exagerated by mining and agricultural activities taking place within the Kootenai river floodplain, Jensen says.
Before its decline in the twentieth century, the burbot, commonly known as “ling”, was of huge importance to local Native-American tribes. Native-Americans depended on the species for sustenance and built weirs on Kootenai river tributaries in order to intercept the fish as they migrated toward their spawning grounds in the wintertime.
Burbot, which can grow to lenghts of 50 inches and live up to 20 years, are the only freshwater cod species. They have a lot in common with the marine cod, including their popularity as table fare.
“They have a white, flaky flesh,” Jensen says. “It’s good with garlic butter...but then again, what isn’t good with that?”
Jensen also mentions their larger-than-average liver, which is considered a delicacy in different cultures, including the native-american cultures that historically inhabited regions of modern-day Idaho, Montana and Canada.
These characteristics make the ling a desireable fish species from a consumer’s point-of-view, and, according to Jensen, the University of Idaho is working with the College of Southern Idaho in order to determine their viabiltiy as a commercial aquaculture species.
However, their populations have to increase significantly before scientists can even begin to look at the species from a commercial perspective, which is one of the reasons why the current reintroduction program is so important.
The physical reintroduction of the burbot, however, is really just one small step in a complex process that takes the better part of a year to complete.
According to Jensen, eggs are collected from a lake in British Columbia sometime in February. Those eggs are then disenfected and transported across the border to the tribe’s hatchery in Moyie Springs. The fingerlings are reared in the hatchery ponds until October, when they are ready to be tagged and released in specific locations.
Because the reintroduction program is relatively new, and it takes three to four years for a burbot to reach sexual maturity, Jensen and his coworkers are unsure if the juveniles will take hold or not.
“We’re taking a lake population and putting it into a river system,” Jensen says, “and we don’t know exactly how that’s gonna play out over the next 15, 20 years.”
In order to further promote their recovery in the Kootenai river, Jensen says the tribe is also working on habitat restoration projects throughout the river. The goal of these projects is to create more spawning habitat for the fish by installing wing dams, building bank stabilization structures and making other crucial improvements to the river bottom,
Jensen says the tribe is working with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game in order to determine the relative success of the program, but that they won’t know how successful it is for at least another two years. This is because IDFG monitors fish populations by deploying nets in specific locations each year and recording their catch, and the hatchery burbot have to grow for at least four years before they are big enough to get caught in these nets.
“Once they start catching burbot in their nets,” Jensen says, “they’re gonna be able to estimate the survival of each year class as we move forward.”
Time will tell whether or not the juvenile burbot released last week will survive to reach sexual maturity. What we do know is that a few of the helpless fish were squashed immediately, albeit accidentally, by small rubber boots.