Cheyenne – The Wyoming Game and Fish Department has found a burbot in the New Fork River near Pinedale, meaning the aggressive, predatory, nonnative fish has spread more quickly than previously thought.
Last year, Game and Fish workers found some young burbot in Fontenelle Reservoir, in southwestern Wyoming. Officials predicted then that the eel-like burbot would spread up the Green River drainage and pose a threat to some of the state’s finest trout waters there.
Burbot, also called ling, are native to the Wind River-Big Horn river drainages on the east side of the Continental Divide.
Officials blame illegal stocking by anglers for the species’ presence west of the Divide. Adult burbot can exceed 30 inches and are voracious predators that eat smaller fish, including young trout.
“They’re so widespread in the Green River system, and the Green River system is so large, there’s no way we can remove these populations,” said Craig Amadio, Green River Region fisheries biologist with the game department.
Amadio said burbot had been found below Fontenelle Reservoir before last year’s discovery, but he said the game department had expected the dam would keep them from spreading upstream.
Department biologists last month captured a 19.5-inch long burbot in the New Fork River. Amadio said the burbot could have come upstream from Fontenelle or could be the result of more illegal stocking.
A netting program in Fontenelle in late October captured burbot up to 23 inches long, Amadio said. Stomach contents showed that they were feeding on juvenile burbot, indicating that the species now is naturally reproducing in the Green River drainage.
“We kind of suspected that, but we didn’t have the data to support those ideas until recently,” Amadio said.
Pete Cavalli, Pinedale fisheries biologist with the game department, said native fish in the Green and New Fork river drainages now will have to compete with juvenile burbot for food and space, and also avoid being eaten by larger burbot.
