Answer:
The ony difference between a "newby" biologist and a bald biologist is the "newby" is arrogant enough to predict how fish and wildlife will respond to changing environmental conditions. I'm a "gray-haired" biologist so I'm not going to give you a definitive answer to your question.
What I will say is, Mother Nature has contingencies for all environmental changes and variation. Typically, when the water warms early, the fish mature and spawn earlier than on a normal year.flow and temperature year. Just a guess - this is probably a programmed response to the risk of rivers warming and flows dropping earlier than an average flow and temperature year. With that said, all it takes is a cold-front to slow the maturation process and put conditions back to what we consider "normal" in our short-term vision of the world.
Peak of spawning (time when most steelhead will spawn) may shift a week or two, but there will still be steelhead spawning in April and early May. Again, variable spawning timing is one way to make sure some segment of the steelhead population will successfully reproduce.
Answered on:
Thursday, March 12, 2015 - 5:26 PM MDT