Movement patterns in inland cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarki utah):: management and conservation implications

Knowledge of movement patterns is critical to the management and conservation of inland salmonids. We studied the movements of Bonneville cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarki utah) in a drainage in western Wyoming, USA. Our objectives were to (i) characterize the postspawning movement patterns of adult Bonneville cutthroat trout, (ii) contrast postspawning and summer movement patterns, and (iii) identify factors that disrupt the movements of Bonneville cutthroat trout. Our data showed that postspawning movements of Bonneville cutthroat trout formed a continuum, with fish moving from 0.5 to 82.0 km. Postspawning distance was positively related to fish length. Despite the wide range of movement observed during the spring, fish did not move more than 0.5 km during the summer. A road culvert and an irrigation diversion dam did not seem to pose barriers to the upstream movement of Bonneville cutthroat trout to headwater spawning areas in the spring. However, 23% of radio-tagged fish in 2000 moved into the irrigation diversion ditch as they moved downstream after spawning and subsequently died there. Maintaining drainage connectivity is an important conservation concern for trout populations such as this one, where fish move between complementary spawning and summer habitats.