(a) Every five years the department shall update the Strategic Plan for Trout Management published in November 2003 as necessary to guide the state’s trout management.

(b) The Strategic Plan for Trout Management shall be intended to ensure all of the following:

(1) Thriving and self-sustaining, wild and native trout populations throughout their historic ranges.

(2) Providing and improving angling opportunities for wild and native trout and other trout.

(3) Providing for the conservation of wild and native trout.

(4) Environmental sustainability and overall ecosystem and watershed health.

(c) The Strategic Plan for Trout Management shall be guided by all of the following considerations:

(1) Adaptively managing trout populations, including, but not limited to, stocking practices, to establish thriving and self-sustaining native and wild trout fisheries in wild trout waters and, where possible, in other waters.

(2) Increasing angler satisfaction.

(3) Ensuring appropriate age distribution of wild trout when appropriate.

(4) Establishing ecologically and environmentally sustainable hatchery and stocking practices for native trout, including, but not limited to, the following:

(A) Hatchery and stocking practices consistent with this chapter.

(B) Stocking plans shall include consideration of angler satisfaction and public use of, and access to, the waters for angling. This may include, but is not limited to, harvest and catch rates, including, but not limited to, trophy catch rates, the potential for high angler satisfaction, and where appropriate, put and grow stocking.

(C) Native trout shall be preferentially stocked when stocking is employed.

(D) Designing stocking plans to maintain and optimize the genetic diversity of trout populations and to be consistent with the direction provided by the strategic trout management team.

(E) Stocking plans for species listed in Section 7261 shall not exceed the documented biological carrying capacity of the water or ecosystem.

(5) Integrating stakeholder involvement into the planning process.

(6) Monitoring and evaluating management processes through angler surveys, public meetings coordinated with county fish and game commissions, or by other means.

(d) The department shall prepare and complete trout management plans consistent with the Strategic Plan for Trout Management for all wild trout waters not more than three years following their initial designation by the commission. The department shall update the management plan every five years or as necessary following completion of the initial management plan. The department shall prepare trout management plans for other waters consistent with the Strategic Plan for Trout Management as appropriate.

(e) Before implementation, the Strategic Plan for Trout Management produced by the department shall be reviewed by the strategic trout management team, the hatchery operations committee, and an ad hoc peer review committee convened by the department to ensure compliance with sound management practices, improved genetic diversity, and use of the best available scientific information.

(f) The Strategic Plan for Trout Management and plans completed pursuant to subdivision (d) shall be publicly available on the department’s Internet Web site.

(Repealed and added by Stats. 2012, Ch. 565, Sec. 11. (SB 1148) Effective January 1, 2013.)