for Missouri River Adopt-A-Fish
Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks
We began the season with most of our adopt-a-fish in the Missouri River. Now, they’re scattered all over the map. This demonstrates just how complex an ecosystem needs to be for our different Missouri River native fish.
They have different needs at different times, whether they are for spawning, over-wintering, feeding, or maybe just an area that makes them comfortable.
Just to give an idea of what these fish are capable of and how diverse their needs are, not only at the species level but even as individuals, let’s have a quick recap of where some of our adopted fish have been this short season.
How about pallid sturgeon #3, which swam 180 miles up the Missouri River this spring, while pallid #2 is just starting to ascend the Yellowstone River?
Blue suckers, which are the big movers later in the year, have been holding in the Missouri River, with the exception of blue sucker #2, which went over Intake Diversion Dam, on the Yellowstone River, and kept going.
Half of our adopted paddlefish ascended the Missouri River while the other half chose to swim up the Yellowstone River.
Then, there’s the shovelnose sturgeon, which seem to prefer the Yellowstone River at this time of year. We had two of our adopted shovelnose actually swim quite a ways downstream in the Missouri River before beginning their ascent up the Yellowstone. How did they know to do that? They don’t have the ability to sense what’s going on downstream of them – do they?
This leads us to the mover of the year award, that goes to shovelnose #3 (A.K.A. Walt, Norman, Nosy, Nic, and Spartan 117), which swam 145 miles down the Missouri River and over 60 miles up the Yellowstone River. All this movement occurred in just our two-month adopt-a-fish season.
Just what lies ahead of these fish for the rest of the season? Some sure seem to know where they are going while others just hold tight and wait for their next cue from the weather or flow or water temperature to move.
I guess everyone will have to wait until next year to find out since this is the last article for the season, as most students are getting out of classes for the season. If classes are interested, I’d be happy to provide a summary of their fish’s movements sometime during the fall semester
Thanks for joining us in this program. I hope everyone enjoyed this as much as I did. The number of classes that are getting involved with the adopt-a-fish program increases every year – in 2005, there were thirty-two classes that participated.
We hope to see you all -- and more school classrooms, too - when the program returns with weekly updates in the spring of 2006.
I’d like to give special thanks to FWP Technicians Landon, Willie, Ryan, and Bill for their efforts on the river to make this project run smoothly. Until next year, good fishing!