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Adopt-A-Fish Update: May 22, 2003 those fish actually use Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks WADE KING U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and MARK HENCKEL Billings Gazette Outdoor Editor It must be pretty neat to be one of Mrs. Beth Hekkel's fifth graders in Culbertson. The Missouri River flows right past town. And in that Missouri River, the adoptees of Missouri River Adopt-A-Fish and countless other fish pass upstream and downstream every day. The biggest lesson from Missouri River Adopt-A-Fish, where students can follow radio-implanted native species, should be to see how much of the river these fish actually use. It's all one big ecosystem - the Missouri River below Fort Peck Dam, which joins with the Yellowstone and Milk rivers and even Lake Sakakawea in North Dakota. What's an ecosystem? Let's put it this way, it's the places these fish go when they need something. It's like Mrs. Hekkel's students. They've got their home where they live. There's a restaurant and food store where they sometimes go when they need food. There's school every day. When they want to have fun, they go to friend's houses. They may head to other towns for certain needs. Put it all together and they're all the parts of each student's ecosystem - the places they go for food, security, special needs. The fish of the Missouri River are the same way. When the food is better is a certain spot, they go there. When they need security, they go elsewhere. When the flows are right, or the water temperatures are right, or it's time to spawn, they go to other parts of their ecosystem. Right now, the blue suckers are definitely moving up the Milk River. It looks like that's the spawning part of their ecosystem. Pallid sturgeon and paddlefish are working up the higher flows and muddy waters of Yellowstone - a key part of their ecosystem. And many of our adopted shovelnose sturgeon are right below the mouth of the Milk River. Are they spawning? Or waiting to go elsewhere in their ecosystem to spawn? Only time will tell. This is the last weekly report of the 2003 Missouri River Adopt-A-Fish. With Memorial Day Weekend at hand, many students will be getting out of school for the year. Others will get out soon thereafter. We'll update our fish maps periodically throughout the summer so you can see where your fish are - see whether they've moved a lot or moved a little or have found a special spot in their ecosystem to spend the warm months of the year. Next spring, we'll start it all again. We hope to add native sauger to the blue suckers, shovelnose sturgeon, paddlefish and pallid sturgeon we're following. In the meantime, have fun and enjoy the fish and fishing that summer can bring. On the Internet, anyone can go to www.walleyesunlimited.com and click on the Missouri River Adopt-A-Fish button to see maps of the movements of the adopted fish or learn more about this unique stretch of the river. Missouri River Adopt-A-Fish is a cooperative effort of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, The Billings Gazette and Walleyes Unlimited of Montana. |
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