Warmer water species point to changing climate in Yellowstone River
by The Daily Eye Team February 10 2014, 11:39 am Estimated Reading Time: 0 mins, 39 secsState biologists were surprised to catch an uninvited guest near Springdale during fish surveys two years ago: a silver sucker with red fins called a shorthead redhorse.
It was the first time they caught the sucker, which normally prefers warmer water, so far upstream in the Yellowstone River.
“We’ve started to pick them up in the spring,” said Scott Opitz, fisheries biologist for Montana Fish,Wildlife and Parks in the Livingston area. “It’s a really unique situation in that we are picking up a warmer water species in an area that has been a cold water fishery for years. And we are picking them up in the spring, which tends to be when the coldest water is in the stream.”