The fish will die regardless: With some Western reservoirs set to run dry, officials lift fishing limits

Fish all you want — they’re doomed either way. That’s the bleak message wildlife officials have given at a handful of reservoirs across Colorado and Oregon.

Both states face stark drought forecasts, with some reservoirs expected to run dry by summer’s end. Given that water managers don’t expect water supplies — or, consequently, the fish that rely on them — to last in those locations, officials have taken special administrative action to remove limits for anglers.

“We have a number of reservoirs that we expect to get exceptionally low this year,” said Tyler Hoyt, an assistant district fish biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. “We took a proactive approach this year and opened the seasons up early to allow anglers to go out and make use of those fish.”

In Oregon, the three reservoirs where fishing limits were lifted all store water from the Powder River, a tributary of the Snake River, which flows through the northeast part of the state. In Colorado, officials recently allowed a period of unlimited fishing on the Antero Reservoir on the South Platte River in the central part of the state and approved another to start Monday on the Nee Noshe Reservoir to the southeast.

The lifted restrictions are a result of the historic snow drought that many Western states have experienced this year. Reservoir operators expect some water storage bodies to run dry, and some are also deliberately moving water to other parts of their systems to reduce the amount that will be lost to evaporation. In these unusual operations, the fish that stock some of these reservoirs will be collateral damage.

On Monday, officials in Oregon lifted “bag limits” — the number of fish that can be legally caught and possessed — for the Thief Valley, Pilcher Creek and Wolf Creek reservoirs. It’s the first year that all three have been opened to fishing because of a drought. Anglers who are normally allowed to fish with two rods can put as many lines in the water as they want. The state’s typical daily limit for trout fishing on a reservoir is five.

By summer’s end, Hoyt said he expects the reservoir will drain to just a few small ponds.

The Thief Valley Reservoir previously went dry in 2024.

“There were pretty large quantities of fish that were stranded in the mud,” Hoyt said. “You’ll see pools develop that are scattered throughout the reservoir, and those will end up holding various numbers of fish that will very likely die either due to warmer water, decreased oxygen or them going completely dry.”

Meanwhile, Colorado just finished the period of unlimited fishing on the Antero Reservoir, where about 5 million sportfish — mostly trout — had been stocked since 2020. Typically, the daily trout limit there is four.

The reservoir, which is operated by Denver Water, is being drawn down for the summer, to redirect water to another reservoir where less will be lost to evaporation. The Antero Reservoir has the highest rate of evaporation in the utility’s system because it’s shallow and broad. Denver Water said it will save the equivalent of 2,500 Olympic swimming pools by moving water out of the reservoir.

“The public came, they fished and now public access is closed off. The draining is beginning,” said Kara Van Hoose, a public information officer at Colorado Parks and Wildlife.

Van Hoose said fish biologists are using screens to direct the remaining fish to certain parts of the reservoir. Plans for what to do after that are still up in the air, but Van Hoose said biologists might use a technique called electrofishing to stun some of the fish with an electric current then move them to other bodies of water.

Even if that happens, some fish won’t make it.

“Once the reservoir drains, there will be fish left over, but it’s the circle of life — that’s really good food for our raptor population, coyotes and raccoons,” Van Hoose said.

She added that the Antero Reservoir was last drained in 2015 for maintenance, and Colorado Parks and Wildlife held a “fish salvage” then, too. It was drained as a response to drought in 2002, when there was a brief open fishing period.

Utah, too, has increased the number of fish people are allowed to take from two reservoirs — the Crouse Reservoir to the east of Salt Lake City and the Nine Mile Reservoir to the south.

Across the West, runoff from snowpack accounts for about 53% of the water supply, research suggests. But this year, most of the snowpack in Western states was gone by mid-May, according to the National Integrated Drought Information System.

Four states — Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico — reported their lowest peak snowpack levels ever. In Colorado, 100% of the state is in drought and about 40% is in “extreme” or “exceptional” drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

By mid-May, 62 of 73 of Oregon’s snow-monitoring locations were at or approaching historic lows. About 96% of the state was in drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

Climate models predict a continued, long-term decline of snowpack as the effects of climate change intensify.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com