May 8 meeting: Matt Mitro from Wisconsin on Beaver Management.

[Michael Dell]

On Wed. May 8 at 7:30 pm we will hear from Matt Mitro about Wisconsin's beaver management.  

We are meeting in person at Queen Mary Park Hall (10844 117 St NW, Edmonton).   Matt will be joining us via ZOOM.  

Everyone is welcome to attend either in person or via ZOOM.  ZOOM attendees have to provide their own coffee and TimBits. 

 

Beaver Influence on Coldwater Stream Habitat and Trout Populations in Wisconsin

 

The control of beaver to maintain free-flowing conditions in coldwater streams is a core trout management strategy in Wisconsin. Beaver have long been considered, by fisheries managers and trout anglers alike, as incompatible with trout in Wisconsin’s low gradient streams. Concerns include beaver dams converting streams with complex pool-riffle-run sequences to long series of pools interrupted by dams; the covering of spawning gravels with silt; reduced availability of juvenile and adult trout habitat; and warming of stream temperatures during summer. Such changes to stream habitat may reduce trout recruitment, survival, and abundance. Research on trout-beaver interactions in Wisconsin has been regionally limited in scope, and recent management plans for both species have called for new research to address pressing management concerns on trout-beaver conflicts in coldwater streams across different ecoregions. Here I will address an ongoing study to fill in the gaps in our understanding of the influence of beaver dams on trout habitat and populations. I will present preliminary observations on beaver-induced changes in physical stream habitat, evidence for warming of stream temperatures by beaver dams, evidence for the obstruction of trout movement by beaver dams, and changes in trout population and fish community dynamics following beaver colonization of low gradient coldwater streams.

 

 

Matthew Mitro is a fisheries research scientist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Based in Madison, Matt has been working with the DNR on statewide fisheries issues since 2003. Matt’s current research is focused on trout in Wisconsin’s inland streams, on issues including stream habitat restoration, propagation and stocking, trout population response to environmental change, age and growth, trout-parasite dynamics, and beaver effects on coldwater stream habitat and trout populations. Matt has also worked for the EPA’s Atlantic Ecology Division, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, and he earned his PhD in fisheries at Montana State University studying rainbow trout recruitment in the Henry’s Fork.