Can someone help me understand why perch and Walleye can't happily coexist in a public body of water?
see this article that encourages people to keep any Walleye they catch.
Anyone on the forum from Idaho?
Unusual Catch raises Concern in Idaho
Not wanted there. I've seen them coexist in some Minnesota waters I have fished.
why not wanted?
Most every large and deep lake in MI we have caught Walleye in also have healthy YP populations. Maybe this is a shallow or smaller BOW?
According to the article, it just seems that Idaho was trying to maintain some kind of yellow perch fishery, and was thus being very selective on what other fish were stocked.
In general, I think Yellow Perch and Walleye usually exist together.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought they were in the same family.
The DOW seemed like they are eager to get to the bottom of it. They are offering compensation to anyone who can provide information that leads to the arrest of those responsible. The DOW has intentionally avoided Walleye, a large gape large long lived predator in all of their water and has never stocked them (so they say). The reason for their avoidance of the fish is its possible impact on fisheries and native fishes, among which are various strains of cutthroat trout. Has nothing to do with the right to co-exist or whether they can play well with YP. That's why I said they don't want them. They don't seem to think they are needed to have a good YP fishery either.
Under the right conditions, Walleye are heavy predators of perch. I assume Idaho is just trying to maintain the prime perch fishery they have developed in that lake. I know of plenty of lakes in the Northern Us and Canada that have strong populations of both species.
Walleye in this lake were not part of the IDNR's plan for the fishery despite what the anglers think about it. The illegal addition of WE interfered with their design and experiment for the lake. Thus the concern.
Very easy to explain - is in first sentence
an invasive predatory fish - to Idaho.
WE and YP co-exist in many waters where both fish are natural to the location.
Thanks for the added comments. I guess it never crossed my mind that a whole state would be naturally without any Walleye and thus they would be considered an invasive species. I guess we learn something every day. I wonder what other state has no naturally occurring walleye. Maybe Hawaii?
I can totally understand if they are trying to control variables to have a YP only fishery.
IF someone illegally stocked walleye I wonder how far they had to transport said walleye and keep it alive in order to illegally plant it there. A cross state night time venture? but why?
They have WAE present in the state already.. stocked in locations that inflow/outflow won't affect other impoundments.
It was not part of their plan, whether they play well together or not, we don't know the full story.
They had a goal, a plan to get to that goal and bucket biologists disrupted that goal.