Tagged Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout Travels at Least 260 Miles!
By angelamontana

Posted: January 26, 2017

A fish at Yellowstone Lake was tagged and tracked.–but, what distance can a fish really swim in a 71-day period?  Here is what was discovered and posted on Yellowstone Forever:

This is pretty cool! The Google Earth animation here illustrates the movement of a tagged Yellowstone cutthroat trout from June to August 2015 in Yellowstone Lake. This fish traveled at least 260 miles over 71 day period. The distance covered over time is much further than park fisheries biologists previously thought. Tagging cutthroat trout and lake trout is one part of a comprehensive research and monitoring plan in Yellowstone Lake to help restore Yellowstone cutthroat trout populations, which have been decimated by the much larger predatory lake trout.

Find out more about this aspect of Yellowstone National Park‘s Native Fish Conservation program at https://www.yellowstone.org/trout.

Animation and data provided by Aquatic Research Biologist, Lee Gutowsky

(feature photo via nps.gov)
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