If you’re planning to go fishing in Yellowstone National Park this summer season, you higher head on the market within the early morning, as a result of beginning on Saturday, the park might be closing all fishing in rivers and streams every day from 2 p.m. till dawn.

The park mentioned these new fishing hours, which might be in impact till additional discover, will assist defend its native fish inhabitants. This summer season, these fish have been beneath critical stress on account of sizzling water temperatures and low stream flows, each signs of the megadrought. Extreme warmth waves which have rippled throughout the West this summer season, worsening circumstances even additional.

In a statement, park officers mentioned temperatures in a few of Yellowstone creeks’ and rivers have surpassed 68 levels Fahrenheit (20 levels Celsius) and that water ranges are approaching “approaching historic lows.” Since issues aren’t anticipated to precisely get chilly any time quickly—highs within the park might be within the mid-80s this weekend and another heat dome is building—these circumstances are in all probability not going to enhance a lot in the meanwhile.

Yellowstone National Park has a catch and launch laws for all native fish, which means the fish should be returned to the streams unhurt. But this, officers say, can nonetheless put the already stressed-out fish beneath much more duress, so it’s greatest to keep away from eradicating them from the water in the course of the hottest a part of the day.

Yellowstone is dwelling to plenty of native trout and different fish. In addition to local weather threats like warmth and drought, which might make it troublesome for fish to seek out meals and journey, these populations face further threats within the type of encroaching invasive species and spread of diseases. This isn’t simply dangerous information for the fish themselves. It may throw off meals chains. Studies show that as cutthroat trout populations within the park dwindled, populations of river otters, which eat cutthroat trout, declined as properly.

It’s not simply Yellowstone’s fish populations which have been having a tough time within the West this summer season. This week, Montana instated new fishing restrictions as a result of low river ranges and fish die-offs have threatened populations of trout, particularly the rainbow and brown trout. In California, officers hatched a plan to drive 17 million chinook salmon from hatcheries within the Central Valley to the ocean as a result of the recent and dry circumstances made it untenable for them to swim downstream. Despite these efforts, officers have warned that practically each younger chinook alongside the Sacramento River might perish anyway. The state of Colorado has requested that folks chorus from fishing alongside a 120-mile (193-kilometer) stretch of the Colorado River on account of, you guessed it, low river ranges and hotter water. In Utah, lawmakers have taken the alternative and far bleaker strategy, doubling the catch limit for trout since many are anticipated to die on account of low water ranges anyway. The West’s unhappy state of fishing affairs is a reminder that local weather change’s impacts are manifold, and that the rising warmth is upending even one in every of summer season’s most stress-free pasttimes.

Lakes within the park, together with Yellowstone Lake, will nonetheless be open for fishing from dawn to sundown as traditional. But officers advise that every one guests follow fishing in the course of the day’s cooler hours and likewise put caught fish again into the water rapidly and gently so that they don’t get too exhausted.

“Your cooperation will protect the park’s fisheries and may preclude the need to prohibit fishing at all times of the day on some rivers and streams if conditions worsen,” Yellowstone mentioned in a press release.