Anglers Turned Bounty Hunters - Ethics and Effectiveness of the Lees Ferry Brown Trout Incentivized Harvest and Other Fish Bounties Across the United States

Across the United States, placing bounties on fish is a management method that is used to remove an unwanted population. Bounties involve anglers being paid to catch a certain species, and they are offered for either population reduction or research. There are several factors involved in designing a fish bounty discussed in this thesis. Fish bounties are interesting in the sense that there is no “right way” to offer them. Each bounty has to be tailored to individual populations in order to achieve the desired goals. The first part of this thesis is a review of fish bounties across the United States, followed by a discussion of their effectiveness. The Brown Trout Incentivized Harvest at Lees Ferry is a topic of controversy and is the main subject of this thesis. The National Parks Service began this program in 2020 and is currently paying anglers $33 for every brown trout (Salmo trutta) they catch and turn in to the agency. This program was started in order to reduce the population of piscivorous brown trout at Lees Ferry, for concern they will disperse 60 miles downstream to where there is a population of protected humpback chub (Gila cypha). There are many opinions related to this incentivized harvest. One way to analyze this situation is to look at it from an animal rights perspective. Martha Nussbaum has created her Capabilities Approach to explain what rights animals are entitled to, as they are creatures deserving of the ability to flourish. This is helpful to assess which decision regarding brown trout and humpback chub is best.