The Service's Yellowstone office and staff will be consolidated with its Montana Fish and Wildlife Management Assistance Office in Bozeman, Montana. The decision was reached in cooperation with the National Park Service, which has overall responsibility for fisheries management in Yellowstone National Park.
"This was a difficult decision," Morgenweck noted, "but it is time for us to focus on more pressing fishery conservation needs in the region. As fisheries technical advisors to the National Park Service in Yellowstone for more than 30 years, the Fish and Wildlife Service is proud to have been able to play a vital part in rebuilding and maintaining Yellowstone as a premier recreational fishery of international stature. To help Yellowstone National Park continue its fisheries management program, the Fish and Wildlife Service will transfer many pieces of equipment to the National Park Service."
From its new location in Bozeman, the Fisheries Assistance Office staff will have responsibilities that include cooperative efforts with the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, the National Park Service, and other natural resource agencies to restore populations of river Arctic grayling, bull trout, and westslope cutthroat trout. The office will also be involved in identifying ways to deal with the whirling disease and other threats to trout fisheries in the Northern Rockies.