Climate Change and Fishing in the Intermountain West

The production and management of high-quality recreational fishing opportunities is being impacted by climate change in a variety of ways. These impacts can be classified as either direct or indirect. Direct impacts refer to... [ view full abstract ]

The production and management of high-quality recreational fishing opportunities is being impacted by climate change in a variety of ways. These impacts can be classified as either direct or indirect. Direct impacts refer to ways in which deviations in meteorological (e.g., precipitation, temperature, etc.) and environmental (e.g., presence/absence of specific plant species, etc.) conditions outside of normal ranges of historic variability limit the ability of fishers to achieve desirable outdoor recreation experiences. A recent example of a direct impact, which we highlight in the presentation, is the large occurrences of Proliferative Kidney Disease in salmonids in Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington during the summer of 2016. Indirect impacts, by comparison, refer to the limited ability of fishers to achieve desirable outdoor recreation experiences as a result of resource management agencies’ climate-related management decisions. An example of an indirect impact is a management agency’s decision to eliminate stocking cold water guild fish species (e.g., rainbow or brown trout), consequently limiting the ability of anglers to target those species (Eaton & Scheller, 1996; Hunt et al., 2016). This presentation details empirical evidence of both the direct and indirect impacts of climate change on recreational fishing from the high deserts of the United States’ Intermountain West region. Specifically, we detail how climate change affects: 1) the diversity and abundance of fish; 2) the behavior of recreational fishers; and 3) the adaptation and/or mitigation policies put in place by resource management agencies. Collectively, the evidence and their supporting illustrative examples highlight the various, and often complex, ways in which climate change effects recreational fishing throughout the high deserts of the Intermountain West.

References

Eaton, J. G., & Scheller, R. M. (1996). Effects of climate warming on fish thermal habitat in streams of the United States. Limnology and Oceanography, 41(5), 1109-1115.

Hunt, L. M., Fenichel, E. P., Fulton, D. C., Mendelsohn, R., Smith, J. W., Tunney, T. D., ... & Whitney, J. E. (2016). Identifying alternate pathways for climate change to impact inland recreational fishers. Fisheries, 41(7), 362-372.