The goal of this proposal is to suppress northern pike in the Lake Roosevelt watershed and prevent the species from spreading and expanding into other water bodies, especially those that support anadromous salmon. The proposed approach to achieve this goal is multi-tiered and includes mechanical removal techniques, angler incentives, and targeted monitoring and research.

The proposal was requested as part of the Council’s conditional recommendation in June 2017 associated with the STOI’s funding request of May 31, 2017 to the Council and Bonneville Power Administration’s Budget Oversight Group (BOG) for Project #1994-043-00, Lake Roosevelt Data Collection. The requested action was to increase gill-netting efforts to remove northern pike. The Council approved the request ($123,017) with the condition that “all further actives in Lake Roosevelt addressing the control of Northern Pike funded through the F&W Program be addressed through a new project proposal narrative.”

The Council’s condition specified that the fish co-managers in Lake Roosevelt—the CCT, STOI, and WDFW—develop a new proposal that describes “a comprehensive strategy to assess and remove Northern Pike in Lake Roosevelt, with time deliverable objectives.” The proposal also would need to respond to previous ISRP reviews and describe an integrated strategy by the co-managers to ensure the Program funds and contracts are efficiently used

On June 13, 2018 the Council approved Project #2017-004-00, Northern Pike Suppression and Monitoring for implementation. During the presentation and discussion, the Council members raised the following comments.

  • The Council would appreciate an annual review of the project regarding it’s principle objective
  • This is a priority project to the Council
  • Partnerships are needed as part of this project, and is not solely a BPA responsibility
  • Seed money (partial funding) may be appropriate, but there is a need to explicitly identify the source and amount of transfers of funds to this project from within existing portfolios.

 The specific language of the recommendation is as follows.

“the Council recommend that Bonneville support implementation of the northern pike suppression efforts presented as part of Project No. #2017-004-00, Northern Pike Suppression and Monitoring, for implementation beginning in Fiscal Year 2019, with ISRP qualifications regarding changes to methods, reporting and other conditions addressed in contracting”.