Bull trout, a species of char, are native throughout the Pacific Northwest and were an important food source for Columbia River Basin tribes, particularly those that did not have access to anadromous salmon and steelhead.
Char is a group of fish within the same family as salmon, steelhead, and trout, but distinct from those other species. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), other North American char species include Dolly Varden, lake trout, brook trout, and arctic char. Char are distinguished from trout and salmon by small scales, a lack of black spots on the body, and being highly adapted to life in very cold water.
Bull trout are native throughout the Pacific Northwest. Historically they were found in the Willamette River Basin west of the Cascades in Oregon, and in the Columbia and Snake river basins inland. Currently, most bull trout populations are confined to headwater areas of tributaries to the Columbia, Snake, and Klamath rivers.
Bull trout are vulnerable to many of the same threats that have reduced salmon populations. Due to their need for very cold water and the long incubation period for their eggs, bull trout are more sensitive to increased water temperatures, poor water quality, and degraded stream habitat than other salmonids. Further threats to bull trout include hybridization and competition with non-native brook trout, predation by and competition with non-native brown trout and lake trout, poaching, and human-made structures that block migration and divert water from stream channels.
In many basins, continued survival of the species is threatened by a combination of factors rather than a single major threat, the USFWS reports. Past and continuing land management activities have degraded stream habitat, especially along larger rivers and streams located in valley bottoms. As a result, water temperature, stream flow and other water quality metrics fall below the range of conditions that bull trout can tolerate. Dams and other in-stream structures impact bull trout by blocking migration routes, altering water temperatures, and killing or trapping fish. Degraded conditions, along with barriers to migration, have severely reduced or eliminated the migratory life history. In many watersheds, remaining populations of bull trout are small, resident fish isolated in headwater streams. Nonnative brook trout, also in the char family of fishes, were introduced throughout much of the range of bull trout. In the cold, headwater streams, brook trout compete for food and space, and hybridize with bull trout.
Bull trout migrate from spawning grounds to rearing habitat in lakes and rivers. They can spawn multiple times, unlike salmon. Adult bull trout typically are small, but given an abundant prey base migratory bull trout can grow to 36 inches in length and weigh up to 32 pounds.
To address the threat of non-native brook trout, management agencies are researching new methods of eradication and planning for small scale suppression and control projects. In basins where bull trout were historically present, the feasibility of their re-introduction is under consideration.
In addition, the State of Oregon implements fishing regulations appropriate to the conservation of all bull trout populations throughout the state.
References and Links
- U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 1998. Determination of threatened status for the Klamath River and Columbia River Distinct Population Segments of bull trout. Federal Register (63):31647-31674.
- U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 1999. Determination of threatened status for bull trout in the coterminous United States. Federal Register (64):58910-58933.
- U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 2005. Designation of Critical Habitat for the Bull Trout. Federal Register (70): 56211-56311.
- U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 2010. Revised Designation of Critical Habitat for Bull Trout in the Coterminous United States. Federal Register (75): 63897-64070.
- U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 2015. Recovery Plan for the conterminous United States populations of bull trout (Salvelinus confluentus). Federal Register (80): 58767-58768.
‘These Most Excellent Fish’
In this 2010 paper, written in conjunction with Explore the River: Bull Trout, Tribal People, and the Jocko River an educational DVD project produced by the Natural Resource Department of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, author Thompson Smith chronicles the history and importance of Bull Trout to the Pend Oreille and Salish people, whose ancestral homeland encompassed much of what is now western Montana, northern Idaho and eastern Washington, centering around the drainages of the Flathead, Clark Fork, and Pend Oreille rivers and extending east of the Continental Divide.
Smith writes:
One of the keys to the long-term success of the Salish and Pend d’Oreille way of life, as Pend d’Oreille elder Mitch Smallsalmon said, was the water – the clear, cold, abundant waters of the tribes’ territories, and the fish that teemed in almost every creek, river, and lake. Mr. Smallsalmon told us, “By that, we were wealthy from the water.” And of all the “wealth” that swam through those sparkling waters, none was more important to tribal people, to their survival and their wellbeing, than the greatest of all the native fish – aay, the Bull Trout. These remarkable creatures served as a critical, stabilizing component of one of the most sustainable ways of life the world has ever seen.
In April 1854, U.S. Army Lieutenant John Mullan, a member of an exploratory party that traversed western Montana, observed Pend Oreille people fishing near the place where the Flathead River leaves Flathead Lake. In a report, Mullan referred to the fish that were caught as “salmon trout,” almost certainly Bull Trout:
We found at the lake four lodges of the Pend d’Oreilles, who have been here some weeks fishing; they presented to us, on arriving at their camp, with some fine fresh and dried salmon-trout. This lake and river abounds in excellent fish, the salmon-trout being the most abundant. These latter are caught from the lake, often measuring three feet long. It forms one of the chief articles of food for the Pend d’Oreilles at this season. During the winter they often camp here when the lake is frozen over, when, cutting holes in the ice, they secure an abundance of these most excellent fish.
