Extreme drought conditions have led officials to consider how hot temperatures and less water could kill fish throughout the state.
Megan McNeil coaxed the final rainbow trout out of a Utah Division of Wildlife Resources stocking truck, using the broken handle of a net to prod the holdout to escape the metal tank. Slipping through a tube, it joined thousands of other fish she released into Smith and Morehouse Reservoir last month.
It’s part of a program the state spent more than $16 million on last year, putting millions of fish into Utah’s waterways. But how state wildlife managers stock Utah’s reservoirs and streams is changing. Some cuts went deeper. Navajo Lake, a shallow reservoir east of Cedar City, saw a 70% decrease in fish stocking last year compared to 2017, according to DWR data.“With the water just getting really low, if we can have fewer fish, what we’re doing is helping the remaining fish survive,” said DWR Sportfish Coordinator Randy Oplinger.
Schaugaard said the fish that aren’t going into Utah’s shrinking reservoirs are being stocked in other places, deeper reservoirs that can hold a bit more life — like Fish Lake, which saw a 19% increase in fish stocking in 2021 compared to the year prior. The primary goal of the fish stocking program, DWR officials say, is for Utahns to have fun catching fish.
The practice of stocking fish started years before Utah gained statehood, according to DWR officials, when the first fish were released in the state in 1871. There are now 13 hatcheries in the state, and wildlife officials put fish in more than 1,000 places in Utah yearly.Critics say the state should focus more of its effort on protecting fish and their habitats, as lakes and rivers in Utah dry and disappear from the landscape.
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