09-18-2004, 02:13 AM
[black][size 5]$1.3 Million Dollars to save the Golden Trout - Plan Aims to Save Calif. State Fish[/size][/black]
[black][size 3]By DON THOMPSON, Associated Press Writer[/size][/black]
[black][font "Arial"][black][size 4]SACRAMENTO - Federal and state officials plan to announce Friday an agreement to spend $1.3 million over the next five years to save California's state fish.
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If it's successful, the effort would avoid having to list the golden trout as a federally threatened or endangered species.
Recent DNA testing by University of California, Davis, researchers found such alarming interbreeding among all remaining populations that there is a real possibility of extinction, according to the assessment and recovery strategy to be released Friday.
"This species has been in trouble for years," said Mike Wintemute, a spokesman for the California Department of Fish and Game. "We're trying to turn back the clock."
The California golden trout was designated the official state fish in 1947. The subspecies of rainbow trout once was common in 450 miles of streams in the Southern Sierra Nevada, but over the past 100 years its habitat has dwindled to about 80 miles.
Though the fish has been transplanted elsewhere, native populations now are found only in the South Fork of the Kern River and its tributary Golden Trout Creek, both in the Golden Trout Wilderness in the Inyo National Forest.
Even there the species is threatened by cattle grazing, off-road vehicles, competition from predatory brown trout, and interbreeding with hatchery-raised rainbow trout introduced by state wildlife managers.
Scientists such as state senior fisheries biologist Stanley Stephens had been monitoring the golden trout's genetic purity for 30 years and thought there was only isolated interbreeding — until the recent DNA analysis by UC Davis' Genomic Variation Laboratory proved otherwise.
"The average angler would look at them, they look just fine," Stephens said. "But over time, things could change" as the interbreeding intensifies.
Not surprisingly, the problem is worst at the lower reaches of the Kern River, where up to 88 percent of the population is affected, and the population becomes purer farther up into the river and tributary creek.
The problem is so widespread that isolating the few remaining pure populations poses its own threats of inbreeding and catastrophic loss due to wildfire, drought or other disasters, the assessment says. The single remaining pure population within the trout's native range is too small to replenish the species, so the only choice appears to be to use at least some populations that already have some limited crossbreeding.
But volunteers are taking DNA samples from fish in about 75 isolated waterways where golden trout were transplanted in the early 1900s and where records show pure stocks could remain.
"It's kind of a shot in the dark," Stephens said.
In addition, the recovery plan calls for more genetic testing, protecting the remaining population from more inbreeding, establishing new refuges in case existing populations are destroyed, limiting grazing, and restoring the species' habitat.
The golden trout's population has been dropping for more than 30 years, prompting the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to rule two years ago that the species might have to be listed under the federal Endangered Species Act. That decision came a year after the conservation group Trout Unlimited sued the agency to force its consideration.
Now the federal and state wildlife services, along with the U.S. Forest Service, are trying to avoid a formal listing by taking steps to protect and increase the population. That's an unusual step and comes as the Endangered Species Act is subjected to increasing criticism, Wintemute said.
Trout Unlimited is willing to go along with that alternative, because this recovery plan has more substance and financial backing than previous proposals, said Chuck Bonham, California counsel for the national organization. Fishing organizations just spent the summer working to improve the trout's native habitat, he said.
The agreement is "a significant step forward," Bonham said.
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[black][size 3]By DON THOMPSON, Associated Press Writer[/size][/black]
[black][font "Arial"][black][size 4]SACRAMENTO - Federal and state officials plan to announce Friday an agreement to spend $1.3 million over the next five years to save California's state fish.
•
If it's successful, the effort would avoid having to list the golden trout as a federally threatened or endangered species.
Recent DNA testing by University of California, Davis, researchers found such alarming interbreeding among all remaining populations that there is a real possibility of extinction, according to the assessment and recovery strategy to be released Friday.
"This species has been in trouble for years," said Mike Wintemute, a spokesman for the California Department of Fish and Game. "We're trying to turn back the clock."
The California golden trout was designated the official state fish in 1947. The subspecies of rainbow trout once was common in 450 miles of streams in the Southern Sierra Nevada, but over the past 100 years its habitat has dwindled to about 80 miles.
Though the fish has been transplanted elsewhere, native populations now are found only in the South Fork of the Kern River and its tributary Golden Trout Creek, both in the Golden Trout Wilderness in the Inyo National Forest.
Even there the species is threatened by cattle grazing, off-road vehicles, competition from predatory brown trout, and interbreeding with hatchery-raised rainbow trout introduced by state wildlife managers.
Scientists such as state senior fisheries biologist Stanley Stephens had been monitoring the golden trout's genetic purity for 30 years and thought there was only isolated interbreeding — until the recent DNA analysis by UC Davis' Genomic Variation Laboratory proved otherwise.
"The average angler would look at them, they look just fine," Stephens said. "But over time, things could change" as the interbreeding intensifies.
Not surprisingly, the problem is worst at the lower reaches of the Kern River, where up to 88 percent of the population is affected, and the population becomes purer farther up into the river and tributary creek.
The problem is so widespread that isolating the few remaining pure populations poses its own threats of inbreeding and catastrophic loss due to wildfire, drought or other disasters, the assessment says. The single remaining pure population within the trout's native range is too small to replenish the species, so the only choice appears to be to use at least some populations that already have some limited crossbreeding.
But volunteers are taking DNA samples from fish in about 75 isolated waterways where golden trout were transplanted in the early 1900s and where records show pure stocks could remain.
"It's kind of a shot in the dark," Stephens said.
In addition, the recovery plan calls for more genetic testing, protecting the remaining population from more inbreeding, establishing new refuges in case existing populations are destroyed, limiting grazing, and restoring the species' habitat.
The golden trout's population has been dropping for more than 30 years, prompting the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to rule two years ago that the species might have to be listed under the federal Endangered Species Act. That decision came a year after the conservation group Trout Unlimited sued the agency to force its consideration.
Now the federal and state wildlife services, along with the U.S. Forest Service, are trying to avoid a formal listing by taking steps to protect and increase the population. That's an unusual step and comes as the Endangered Species Act is subjected to increasing criticism, Wintemute said.
Trout Unlimited is willing to go along with that alternative, because this recovery plan has more substance and financial backing than previous proposals, said Chuck Bonham, California counsel for the national organization. Fishing organizations just spent the summer working to improve the trout's native habitat, he said.
The agreement is "a significant step forward," Bonham said.
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