Montana wildlife officials have a new draft plan that will guide fishery management throughout the state for the next four years. Fish Wildlife and Parks will hold open house discussions across the state to present the plan and hear feedback from the public.
Eileen Ryce, who heads the Fishery Division at Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks, said the department’s new statewide management plan is different from its predecessors in that it includes more rationale for management decisions.
“This time, what we really wanted to do was explain not just the what we do, but the why we do it,” Ryce said.
Ryce said that emphasis was chosen because it’s the first fisheries plan under this administration, which brought many new faces to the department. Recent Montana residents have also been asking the department why things are done differently here than other states.
“And a lot of it was to capture institutional knowledge or fisheries philosophy that we’ve been following for decades but hadn’t compiled into one place,” Ryce said.
The document contains overviews of active fishery management programs and lays out the priorities for future actions, like specific management plans for 40 individual drainages in the state.
Department officials are holding public meetings across the state to discuss the plan and other new proposals for fishing regulations.
Public comment on the statewide plan and new regulations are open on Fish Wildlife and Parks website.