An Interview with Mark Downen, Area Inland Fish Biologist, North Puget Sound Region Mark Downen lives in Bellingham, and works at the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife's (WDFW) North Puget Sound Region headquarters in Mill Creek. He received his bachelor and masters degrees in environmental science at Western Washington University. He began work with WDFW two-and-a-half years ago, and recently became WDFW's area inland fish biologist for King, Snohomish and Island counties.

What sorts of fish management projects are you currently working on? I'm responsible for alpine lakes and lowland lake fish management. In my area I have about 700 lakes, and about 400 to 500 of those are alpine (high mountain) lakes. I'm also very involved in bull trout recovery in the region, monitoring and assessing bull trout populations in my area. And recently the Lake Sammamish kokanee population has come under scrutiny because it's all but disappeared. So that has been a very important part of my job for the last six to eight months. I'm involved in collecting the genetic samples to get some idea how many fish are left in the system, and where the populations reside. There is no typical routine to my work week. I'm giving presentations as I'm changing out of my neoprene waders. I've got slide projectors and screens in my truck, I've got fish measuring boards, electrofishing units in the back of my truck, I've got all sorts of things going on at any given time. My field season is generally spring and summer and fall, but lately it's been non- stop. Most recently I've been visiting the bass clubs, working with them trying to use their tournament fishing as an index for bass population assessment on some of our bigger waters. So I'm giving presentations all over the region to those bass clubs to try to get them interested in collecting data that can be useful for the management of the resource. I do a lot of work out in the field, yet also I have an enormous amount of work in the office keeping up with the dissemination of information, e-mail and phone calls. In graduate school, I studied salmonid ecology in disturbed urban stream systems and how the fish interacted with humans as well as with non-native species in the system. That really provided me with an excellent background for coming to work for this agency. My education really influenced the way I approach fish management. Environmental science is an ecosystem- based approach to any resource and I think it's extremely valuable to look at everything from an ecosystem perspective. We all approach issues, even scientific ones, with an ethic. My graduate study of environmental ethics was extremely valuable because it basically taught us that we all operate with an environmental ethic, whether we admit it or not. Some people are extreme conservationists, others are extreme resource harvest-oriented and many of us fall somewhere between. Our ethic determines what kinds of questions we ask. In this kind of work, nothing is clear cut, nothing is predictable. I'm versed in chaos theory, so I'm actually not surprised by that. The job is endless and at some point you have to choose and prioritize and often times that's extremely difficult, there are so many issues begging for your attention. How important are partnerships with other agencies and organizations in carrying out your fish management projects? Almost all the success of any of my projects is directly related to how successful I am in forging alliances with other agencies. I've worked with the Seattle City Parks and Recreation Department on Green Lake ecology issues, with King County in kokanee assessment, with the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on bull trout, with bass clubs throughout Western Washington on bass population assessments, with fishing organizations like Trailblazers and Hi-Lakers on distributing and monitoring fish in alpine lakes. A number of private timber companies, including Weyerhaeuser, cooperate with us on management of mid- elevation lakes on their lands. We have limited resources and we need to be able to forge alliances and network and be creative in acquiring the information we need to make good decisions. It helps us stretch our funding and effort. How are WDFW and the Seattle Parks Department working together at Green Lake? The Seattle Parks Department has a great interest in Green Lake because it is part of their park system. For a number of years they have worked through a number of water-quality issues, the latest of which is vegetation proliferation. They have had consulting firms do studies of the chemistry and dynamics of the water in the lake and, more recently, fish-related studies. WDFW did surveys of Green Lake in 1997 and 1999. When we began doing our stock assessment of the lake, it was thought that Green Lake represented a very valuable and important opportunity in terms of restoring some kind of a fishery, because of the lake's proximity to the urban center, to disadvantaged people, to people who may not have transportation outside the vicinity and because of its shoreline access. So basically the Seattle Parks Department and WDFW have similar goals as agencies and working together is really the best way to reach those goals. What is WDFW doing to improve recreational opportunity at Green Lake? Green Lake is open to fishing year-round. With its unlimited shoreline access and its proximity to population centers, Green Lake is an ideal entry-level fishing opportunity for many people who may not have access or transportation to go out and experience wilderness areas. For recreational purposes, we recently released large triploid trout, to enhance fishing opportunities in a popular, accessible urban fishing opportunity. The triploid trout program originated with an act of the Legislature aimed at increasing recreational fishing opportunity. Triploid trout, which have three sets of chromosomes instead of the usual two, are sterile. Because they are sterile, it is believed they'll shunt their energy into growing, rather than producing eggs and sperm, so they will be bigger and longer-lived fish than average rainbow trout. One of the most exciting things about the triploids is that they go into the lakes as large fish to begin with, averaging one to three pounds. So they are very desirable right from the onset of stocking. But if they carry over from one season to the next they have the potential to grow to a very respectable size– in excess of five pounds. In lakes where we have selective gear rules, like Lone Lake in Island County, we have the opportunity to create a trophy trout fishery in the lowland waters. This is the second year of the triploid program, and the stocking has been doubled. I'm hoping by working hard to distribute those fish in a way that maximizes opportunity there will be incentive to continue the program. People were really excited to see large fish showing up in their creel on opening day last year. The 8- to 10-inch trout are fine for kids, kids really like catching them, but for more serious trout anglers large trout are really a good way to go. In this urbanized area, I'm trying to maximize fishing opportunity and spread that opportunity around as much as possible. In my area, we have about 11 lakes that will get triploid trout. Some, Green Lake, are getting them for the first time this year. Each of the lakes was chosen for stocking based on its proximity to population centers and its ability to hold and grow fish. Both year-round and seasonal waters were chosen, and both selective-gear lakes and standard-regulation lakes will be stocked to provide a diversity of opportunity. What is being done to improve Green Lake's ecology? At Green Lake we have relatively few conservation issues and a large number of recreational issues. We have a lake that has been completely re-channeled in terms of its inlets and outlets, a lake that has experienced enormous growth within its very small watershed. There are a number of water quality issues, including vegetation control issues for people who row and swim in Green Lake. Nutrient enrichment and retention in the lake caused algae growth that was highly detrimental to the water quality. In an effort to curb that growth, the city attempted at one time to treat the lake with alum, a chemical that binds with phosphorus, which is a critical chemical for plankton growth. That ended up putting phosphorus in the lake bottom sediment, causing vegetation to proliferate throughout the lake. Basically, productivity shifted from algae to rooted macrophites such as milfoil. We have very few options to treat the symptoms effectively and it really becomes more of a question of trying to balance the existing conditions rather than utterly transforming Green Lake. Currently the Seattle Parks Department is mechanically removing milfoil from the lake with a harvesting machine. But they barely make a dent. It's such a proliferating population that purely mechanical means aren't likely to ever eradicate the plants. Outside of taking all the phosphorus-laden sediments out of the lake with trucks and what not, they probably couldn't even begin to influence the water quality. So we're trying to take an ecosystem approach to take this highly productive lake and re-channel that productivity into things that will be more desirable for various recreational uses of the lake. The other challenge at Green Lake is the balance of fish species in the lake. Our stock assessment on Green Lake in recent years documented that common carp dominate the biomass of the lake. It was thought that some method should be implemented to control the carp because the carp have no natural predator in the lake– they basically grow unchecked. They can reach 40 pounds, although they probably don't reach that size in this particular system, but they can grow very large. They're fairly long-lived and they tie up a lot of biomass. They are not a highly sought after sport fish, very few people fish for the carp other than for subsistence. The carp probably got into Green Lake the same way most of the other fish species have gotten there, through illegal introduction. People just dump them in the lake. Other species have been introduced to Green Lake the same way– rock bass, yellow perch, brown bullhead catfish, largemouth bass. Over the years, WDFW has attempted to introduce species such as brown trout to control the carp, but they have not been entirely successful because carp grow so rapidly. Channel catfish have been also stocked to put some predatory pressure on the panfish population, but they don't seem to persist very long in the lake. What is an ecosystem approach, and how is it being employed at Green Lake? ? An ecosystem includes primary forage producers, foragers and predators. By looking at the members of the community and how they interact, we can make decisions on how to influence those parts to change the direction of the system. Biological controls, rather than large-scale chemical or physical alteration of the environment, can move us in the direction we want to go. Biological controls use a species to influence the community structure of fish and or plants. At Green Lake we are looking at the bottom end of the ecosystem web, the vegetation, and looking for biological controls on that vegetation. One example of a biological control to thin common carp and improve the lake's ecosystem was our introduction of sterile tiger muskies as an apex predator. Last November we put 150 20-inch tiger muskies in Green Lake, as a test run to control carp and panfish. We're hoping they will crop common carp and some of the panfish, which seem to be very dense and somewhat stunted in their growth. This number of tiger muskies is a very low density and I don't expect to see an enormous change soon in the community structure of the lake. We're evaluating what they eat and how they interact with other species in the lake before we put Green Lake on a regular schedule for tiger muskie. To evaluate the success of the tiger muskie introduction, we rely on warmwater enhancement stock assessment. We have 14 assessment teams in the state responsible for conducting stock assessment on lakes that have a potential for developing warmwater fisheries. We have a biologist that heads the team. We basically divide the lake up into sections along the shoreline, randomly select sections, sample those sections and then look at the length, frequency and the growth rates of those fish by analyzing scales. With the scale sample we can age the fish and basically calculate the rate of growth An assessment team will be out on Green Lake both this spring and next fall to spot-check the tiger muskies and to get a sense what those fish are eating and where they are distributing. I want to look at the interaction of these fish with the trout that we are stocking. One of the concerns that some of the anglers have had is whether the tiger muskies consume large number of trout. With the tiger muskie, we'll look at their growth rate, and look at anything they may have in their stomach at the time of sampling, where they are in the lake, which habitat they are keen on. The other effort at a biological control is grass carp, which the city of Seattle plans to introduce to the lake this spring. Grass carp are not to be confused with common carp–they are two different species, and have different feeding behavior. Common carp tend to root up the sediment digging for insect larvae, redistributing phosphorus and influencing water quality in a number of detrimental ways. By contrast, grass carp nibble the ends of vegetation, reducing vegetation height and potentially creating patches of open water. Grass carp have been considered for a number of years as part of the solution to Green Lake's vegetation problems. The intention is not to completely eradicate vegetation, but to reduce and control vegetation. We've come to learn that, for fish, total eradication of vegetation is a disaster. There needs to be an intermediate density of vegetation to provide some refuge for the smaller fish from larger fish. There's a balance there– if there's too much vegetation then all the fish become stunted. If there's not enough then the predators quickly outstrip the forage fish and start to starve. Grass carp are expected to decrease the vegetation density so people who row on the lake and who use the lake for other activities will have better access. When the vegetation is thinned fish that benefit from zooplankton populations will have more access to their food supplies. There are a certain amount of nutrients within any ecological system and it's a matter of redistributing those from one place to another. If we can take some of the plants out we will open up foraging opportunities for the fish. What are your expectations for the opening day of trout fishing on seasonal lowland lakes? The opening day of trout fishing in lowland lakes– which takes place this year on April 28– has been a rite of spring in Washington state for at least 50 years. Lowland lake trout fishing continues to provide a valuable recreational opportunity for a variety of anglers– families, casual fishers and others. It's a gateway to the whole world of freshwater fishing for kids and other new anglers. Many of our opening day opportunities occur in lakes close to population centers, with improved docks and boat launches, so they are accessible to a number of people. One thing that is noteworthy this year is that because of the triploid trout stocking program, we are able to redistribute some of our regular trout stocking effort to some waters that had been dropped in recent years, so we are able to bring back some nearby fishing opportunities in some communities. How do you expect this year's drought to impact fish management in your area? A number of our reservoirs are critically low and will not receive fish plants at their appointed time. We're still waiting to make the determination whether they will receive fish at all. Some of the lakes, in particular Lake Shannon, Baker up in Skagit County and Rattlesnake Lake in east King County, are critically low. Rattlesnake Lake was slated to receive triploid trout as well as its annual allotment of catchable trout but as of mid-March the trucks couldn't get close enough to even plant it. I've been told you have to walk several hundred yards from the initial access point to the water line and that's the lake is about six feet deep in the middle. Even if a stocking truck can make a delivery to a lowland lake, the drought greatly reduces the amount of available habitat for those fish and it also reduces the accessibility for boat anglers. And less water tends to mean warmer water and more crowding of fish, which puts stress on the fish. I think the drought will be a major issue in streams as well, particularly urban streams where water flows are reduced even in good years. Some fish spend a year or two or three of their life history in freshwater streams before they head to sea, and those fish– the coho, cutthroat, steelhead and the spring-run chinook– will definitely be affected. What is WDFW doing about concerns for kokanee in Lake Sammamish? There are definitely some unique populations of kokanee in Lake Sammamish. The early-run fish seem to have completely disappeared, we only found two in the course of our surveys last summer and those fish were unique because of their early timing. The remaining kokanee in Lake Sammamish that enter the streams later may also have native component and appear to exist in the lake at low densities. We may have trouble holding on to those fish in the coming decade. It's a real tough situation because habitat is the key to the preservation of any species. I don't think anybody's goal is to create museum populations of fish. They are utterly dependent on humans for their very existence. Lake Washington is like Green Lake in a much grander sense in that we have completely rechanneled and transformed the Lake Washington system by creating the Ship Canal and increasing accessibility to sea for salmonids. Prior to the Ship Canal the Cedar River did not flow into the south end of Lake Washington but into the Duwamish River, and a small tributary called the Black River flowed down from Lake Washington into the Cedar I believe. You had a completely different system. What work are you doing on bull trout recovery? Bull trout are listed as threatened by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. But in this region, bull trout are our bright spot. They are a native fish and their spawning habitat is largely undisturbed on this side of the Cascades because it is largely in wilderness or national park areas. By changing harvesting regulations we've been able to turn the bull trout population trend from a declining one to an increasing one. We have reduced the take on those fish and protected them at critical times, which has resulted in an increased number of fish on the spawning grounds and our index reaches. That also points up what a large role habitat plays in fish recovery. The bull trout population improvements are a small success in a sea of controversy and crisis fish management wise. And to be up there conducting surveys in these pristine areas on these native fish that have always been there since the last glaciers is a truly liberating feeling. What are the fish management issues on high alpine lakes? We have a number of issues going on in alpine lakes– chiefly how to create fishing opportunity in those lakes and still respect the native ecosystems, the amphibians and the native zooplankton populations and how to identify potential fish impacts in streams and rivers that may have populations of concern, like bull trout and native cutthroat. I strongly believe that both interests can be served, that we can protect the integrity of the ecosystems and stock fish in chosen waters. We're stocking western Washington lakes strictly with fish species native to western Washington. And we're stocking functionally sterile rainbow trout– fish that have never been observed to spawn in any of our high lakes– which allows us to control the number and duration of those fish in the lake, and helps fishing in terms of preventing stunted populations.