Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 129:1160–1170, 2000 qCopyright by the American Fisheries Society 2000 Movement Patterns of Stream-Resident Cutthroat Trout in

• Main Authors: Beaver Creek Idaho–utah, Robert H. Hilderbrand, Jeffrey, L. Kershner
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1160
• Subjects: Beaver Creek
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.595.4269; http://www.nrmsc.usgs.gov/files/norock/products/tafsmove2000.pdf

Abstract.—We used mark–recapture, radiotelemetry, and two-way traps to determine daily, sea-sonal, and annual movements of cutthroat trout Oncorhynchus clarki in Beaver Creek, Idaho–Utah. We recaptured 26 of 167 (16%) passive integrated transponder (PIT)-tagged cutthroat trout; 16 of the fish were recaptured less than 300 m from the point of capture 1 year earlier, whereas 10 fish were recaptured a median of 1,407 m (range 331–3,292 m) from their captured point of the previous year. Radio-tagged individuals moved less frequently and shorter distances (median 5 0 m) during autumn and winter, more frequently and farther during spring in association with spawning (median 5 576 m), and variably and sporadically during summer (median 5 55 m). We found substantial local movements during a diel period that would not have been found using a once weekly observation period. Frequency of cutthroat trout movement through two-way traps was greatest in July and early August and had stopped almost entirely by early September. Movement timing and frequency were similar between the traps and the radio-tagged fish. Our results demonstrate the mobility potential of cutthroat trout and the importance of selecting appropriate spatial and temporal scales of observation when studying their ecology. Until recently, many scientists regarded trout as sedentary following Gerking’s (1959) idea of re-stricted movement in stream fishes, termed the re-stricted movement paradigm (RMP) by Gowan et al. (1994). Heggenes et al. (1991) reported almost 50 % of cutthroat trout Oncorhynchus clarki in their study reach moved less than 3 m from the original point of capture between spring and fall, and only about 18 % moved more than 50 m. Similar results have been reported for brook trout Salvelinus fon-tinalis (Shetter 1968), brown trout Salmo trutta