Tongue River in Wyoming: A Baseline Fisheries Assessment, Monarch to the State Line

摘要

A baseline study of fish populations was conducted in northeastern Wyoming's Tongue River and Goose Creek as part of a research project on the ecological effects of a large surface coal mine near Sheridan, Wyoming. The study area is a transition zone between the cold-water, torrential habitat in the Bighorn Mountains and the warm-water, quiet-zone habitat of the lower Tongue River. Fauna of the study area form one of the most diverse fisheries in Wyoming and include brown and rainbow trout, sauger, smallmouth bass, and black bullhead. Diversity generally increases in a downstream direction. Sauger and northern pike are extending their ranges from Montana into Wyoming to spawn; sauger in the study area are very fast-growing, probably due to the abundance of forage species. Studies should continue on the effect of the new Tongue River channel at the Big Horn Mine site in order to determine if recolonization is occurring. Spawning movements of sauger and northern pike in the Tongue River should be followed so that the effects of future mining along the Tongue River may be evaluated. (ERA citation 81:026297)