Efforts to restore native brook trout in the Mountain State continue and fisheries biologists for the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources recently surveyed a trout stream in Tucker County to see if the project is showing signs of success.
“We caught between 30 and 40 native brook trout and now we’re going to look at the samples and data we collected to see how well the population is doing here,” said David Thorne, cold water fisheries biologist for the WVDNR.
Thorne and a team of fisheries biologists used state-of-the-art electrofishing equipment to catch the trout. Electrofishing is a standard procedure for sampling fish populations to see how they’re doing in a given water. Two electrodes are used to send electric currents through the water, which temporarily stuns the fish and makes them easier to catch and study.
“Our work here today is part of a broader effort to learn how genetically diverse our state’s brook trout population is,” Thorne said. “Every piece of data we collect helps us improve the way we manage this important fish and do everything we can to mitigate conservation threats caused by increasing water temperature and loss of habitat.”
Read more: