Summary Fish Management Section

The majority of what we know today about the habitat requirements and life histories of most Wisconsin nongame fishes comes after a period of land use that has greatly altered their pristine aquatic environments. As a result, management considerations are likely based on incomplete and biased information.

Many species are believed to have been negatively affected by heavy erosion and the accompanying runoff, siltation and turbidity, or by the impounding of rivers and streams. Most fish species will likely benefit from watershed management that reduces erosion and runoff. Because the specific details about the life histories of most nongame fish or their microhabitat preferences are unknown or are understood within the context of highly altered conditions, it is difficult to offer species specific suggestions that may benefit them. This lack of detail or biased view of fish life histories should motivate us to pay greater attention to these valuable components of our aquatic systems. The place to start is better documenting their distributions and relative abundances, and noting habitat associations where specimens are collected.

As more rivers and streams are cleaned up and returned to more pristine conditions, we may see fish life histories that are more indicative of pre-settlement times. These data in turn should help us better manage these poorly understood fishes.

Information compiled from publication ER-091.