Preliminary Report for Big Cypress Bayou Paddlefish

Reintroduction Assessment February 2014 to August 2014

Texas Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office

Peter Diaz and Mike Montagne

Executive Summary

On19 February 2014, biologists from Texas Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office

(TXFWCO) and Tishomingo National Fish Hatchery (TNFH) implanted radio tags into 47

eighteen month old paddlefish from the TNFH. The radio tags have a maximum life expectancy

of 494 days. Surgeries were performed under the supervision of Kerry Graves, the project leader

at TNFH, who has conducted numerous paddlefish surgeries. The surgeries were all successful

with zero mortalities resulting from the procedure. The fish were kept at TNFH for two weeks

prior to transport to the Big Cypress Bayou area on 5 March 2014.

Figure 1. Paddlefish prepared for surgery at Tishomingo National Fish Hatchery.

Paddlefish are notorious for their poor ability to handle transport in most fish hauling

tanks. Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) designed two new circular tanks to

transport the fishes to the Big Cypress Bayou safely (Figure 2). These tanks worked extremely

well and all fish arrived at the release sites energetic and healthy.

Figure 2. Transport tanks from Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

On 3 March 2014, TXFWCO biologists traveled to the Big Cypress Bayou area to set up

radio telemetry towers at three locations. Towers were erected on private property above

Jefferson, on private property just below Caddo Lake State Park, and on U.S. Corp of Engineers

land above the Caddo Lake spillway on the Louisiana side (Figure 3). The paddlefish were

released at two locations within the Big Cypress Bayou. Thirty six radio tagged paddlefish were

released at Caddo Lake State Park, and eleven additional radio tagged paddlefish were released

18 miles upstream at the boat ramp in Jefferson Texas. Following the release, the fish were

tracked by boat. All 47 fish were contacted by the telemetry towers following release.

Figure 3. Map of the study area showing locations of the towers.

By 21 April 2014, 44% (21) of the paddlefish had moved up to the Lake O’ the Pines

(LOP) spillway. Another 27% (13 fishes) were present within the Big Cypress Bayou, and one

fish located within Caddo Lake. A total of 35 fish were contacted in April 2014 after the release

in March. The trend for the fishes to move upstream to the LOP spillway has continued up to the

last monitoring date for this report (August 2014; Figure 4). The Big Cypress Bayou from

Caddo Lake to the LOP spillway is about 34 miles. Therefore, these fish traveled at most

approximately 32 miles from the Caddo Lake State Park up to the LOP spillway. The fish

released at Jefferson that moved upstream to the LOP spillway travelled around 11 miles.

During the August monitoring trip, TXFWCO and TPWD electrofished the area below the LOP

spillway searching for paddlefish. Five paddlefish were seen, three of them were captured. All

three fish looked healthy and had gained weight and grown longer (Figure 5). The data collected

to date indicates that no paddlefish have gone over the Caddo Lake spillway in Louisiana.

Figure 4. Paddlefish present within half a mile from the Lake O’ the Pines spillway from March

to August 2014 (left y-axis; blue line). The red line are the flows released from Lake

O’ the Pines (right y-axis).

Figure 5. Paddlefish captured in August 2014 during electroshocking below Lake O’ the Pines

spillway.

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

0

5

10

15

20

25

March April May June July August

Monthly Data

Eight of the 11 fish released at Jefferson were detected at Tower 1 (most upstream

telemetry tower) from the 5-10 March 2014. This tower is 2.5 miles upstream of the Jefferson

release site. In addition, 20 paddlefish that were stocked at the Caddo Lake State Park were

contacted at Tower 1 in March 2014; with an additional five contacted in April 2014. All

contacts of paddlefish by telemetry towers or boat tracking are presented in Table 1. Boat miles

tracked is lower in March and April 2014 due to the stocking in March and the need to adjust

equipment and other technical issues in April.

Table 1. Data collected from towers and tracking on locations of paddlefish within the study

area.

March April May June July August Last Known

Location

LOP Spillway 0 21 20 19 17 17 26

Big Cypress Bayou 47 13 14 7 7 1 13

Caddo 0 1 0 0 2 0 6

Boat Miles 10 30 50 50 50

Fish Contacted 47 35 34 26 26 18 45

Percentage LOP 44 42 40 36 36 55

Percentage BCB 27 29 14 14 2 27

Percentage Caddo 2 0 0 4 0 12

Temperature Data

Temperature loggers were deployed at four sites within Big Cypress Bayou. The data

will be analyzed and compared to data in the literature for paddlefish migration ques. The

temperature data from Tower 1 and 2 is highly correlated with flow from LOP (Figure 3). This

relationship is to be expected, however, the temperature is likely to be correlated with seasonality

as well. One temperature logger below LOP spillway was not recovered, and a new logger will

be placed in the area on the September 2014. Another logger is within a section of the Big

Cypress Bayou that is inaccessible at the current flow. The temperature logger has enough

memory to log data every 15 minutes for the next year. Once flows increase the data will be

downloaded. Below is the data for temperature loggers from Tower 1 and 2.

Figure 3. Temperature recorded from data loggers present at Towers 1 and 2. Temperature is

reported in Celsius.

0

10

20

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90

5-M

ar

12

-Mar

19

-Mar

26

-Mar

2-A

pr

9-A

pr

16

-Ap

r

23

-Ap

r

30

-Ap

r

7-M

ay

14

-May

21

-May

28

-May

4-J

un

11

-Ju

n

18

-Ju

n

25

-Ju

n

2-J

ul

9-J

ul

16

-Ju

l

23

-Ju

l

Tower 1 Temperature Data

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

4-M

ar

11

-Mar

18

-Mar

25

-Mar

1-A

pr

8-A

pr

15

-Ap

r

22

-Ap

r

29

-Ap

r

6-M

ay

13

-May

20

-May

27

-May

3-J

un

10

-Ju

n

17

-Ju

n

24

-Ju

n

1-J

ul

8-J

ul

15

-Ju

l

22

-Ju

l

Tower 2 Temperature Data

Pearsons Correlation to flow data

r = -0.52; p = <0.0001

Pearsons Correlation to flow data

r = -0.53; p = <0.0001

Flow Data from Lake O’ the Pines Spillway

Table 2. Data from the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers for the Lake O’ the Pines Spillway from

the beginning of the study to early September 2014.

Day March April May June July August September

1 313 232 299 55 54 53

2 253 185 299 55 54 53

3 347 185 225 55 54 53

4 347 185 162 54 54 53

5 403 347 167 162 54 54 53

6 403 348 158 162 54 54 53

7 403 349 158 162 54 54 53

8 403 519 158 162 54 54 53

9 403 984 158 162 54 54

10 403 1116 158 162 54 54

11 402 1615 159 162 54 54

12 401 1912 159 162 54 54

13 401 1907 250 162 54 54

14 401 1373 296 162 54 54

15 401 767 297 162 54 54

16 403 437 297 121 54 54

17 403 347 298 96 54 54

18 402 347 299 96 54 54

19 403 347 299 96 54 54

20 403 347 299 96 54 54

21 403 347 299 96 54 54

22 403 347 299 96 54 54

23 403 347 299 96 54 54

24 403 346 299 96 54 54

25 403 346 299 95 54 54

26 402 345 299 96 54 54

27 401 345 299 96 54 54

28 401 345 299 95 54 54

29 402 345 299 96 54 54

30 401 345 299 68 54 54

31 401 299 54 54