Shenandoah National Park fish monitoring protocol: Version 5.0

Wofford, John; Demarest, E.

This document culminates an attempt to update a legacy National Park Service monitoring protocol to current monitoring protocol standards (see Oakley 2003). A legacy protocol, as defined here, is a protocol with a history predating the National Park Service Natural Resource Inventory and Monitoring Program (est. 1998). Legacy protocols may have objectives, sampling designs, and other procedures that may be dated and may not follow current I&M guidance. Updating this protocol generally entailed providing more thorough written documentation on protocol procedures, goals, and objectives. No consideration was given to altering historic methods, procedures, or sampling designs. The primary purpose of this document is to clearly articulate how the protocol has been implemented over the past thirty years. Much of this document was based upon a draft protocol by Atkinson (2002) that was updated with additional detail by J. Wofford and E.D. Demarest. E.D. Demarest has participated with implementation of this protocol since 1991. During the late-1970’s and early-1980’s Shenandoah National Park (SHEN) identified brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) as an important component of ecosystem monitoring for park management. A more recent assessment confirmed this determination when the National Park Service’s Mid-Atlantic Inventory and Monitoring Network (MIDN), identified brook trout and fish communities as an important ecosystem “vital sign” in SHEN (Comiskey and Callahan 2008). Given the importance of brook trout management, fish monitoring was initiated in Shenandoah National Park in 1982. The early years of the program focused on gaining an improved understanding of brook trout population dynamics so that angling could be better managed (Haskell 1987). In 1991, fish monitoring was accepted into SHEN’s Inventory and Monitoring (I&M) Prototype Park sampling program. In 1995, a review by National Park Service and state fisheries managers resulted in modifications to the monitoring program. These modifications led to a reduced number of sampling sites that would be sampled annually, an added focus on collocating sampling sites with Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (VDGIF) fish monitoring locations, and changes in monitoring techniques with an emphasis on shifting from one-pass to multiple-pass electrofishing. The 1995 program identified a suite of “primary” sites that would be monitored annually, and additional “secondary” sites that would be monitored on a five-year rotation, or as financial resources allowed. Primary sites would be monitored using multiple-pass electrofishing and secondary sites would be monitored via single-pass electrofishing. In the 1980’s, early monitoring and research results noted the strong effect of underlying bedrock geology on water quality and fish diversity and, in the 1995 site selection process, sites were loosely stratified across the three major bedrock geologic types found in Shenandoah. Most streams that are sampled have one site near the park boundary, with larger watersheds having one to four additional sites upstream. Sites are generally 100m long and most are sampled without the use of block nets. All captured fish are counted, and gamefish (namely salmonids and centrarchids) are individually measured and weighed. A gross weight of non-game fish by species and a maximum and minimum length of non-game fish by species is also collected. A variety of physical habitat characteristics are collected at each site, including stream length, wetted width, substrate, gradient, etc. Water quality and quantity information is also collected during each sampling visit. As time has allowed, inventory of fish communities on new streams at the park boundary has occurred using sampling methods similar to the monitoring protocol, and to date, virtually every perennial stream in Shenandoah has been sampled for fish. These sites have been added to the original 1995 secondary site list.

Shenandoah National Park fish monitoring protocol: Version 5.0

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