Endangered existence
Predators, cattle and hybrid breeding are pushing the golden trout closer to extinction
by Marek Warszawski
Fresno Bee
August 17, 2005

Few creatures on earth dazzle the pupils like golden trout, California's state fish.

Small and distinctive with bright orange bellies, red and yellow striping and black spots, golden trout seem less like a naturally occurring species and more like the creation of some artist who got carried away with florescent paint.

Seen in their native waters — two branches of the Kern River in the southern Sierra Nevada — golden trout in one moment radiate sunlight like the precious metal itself. The next, they blend into amber-hued stream bottoms as if invisible.

"The most beautiful fish you'll ever see in your whole life," Visalia fly fisherman Hugh Stubblefield said. "So beautiful, they almost look fake."

In this case, beauty is both a blessing and a curse. While their striking color gives golden trout what Sierra fly fishing guide Jimmie Morales called "a mystique," those looks are largely to blame for their tenuous future.

Environmental degradation -- brought on by cattle grazing, hybrid breeding and predatory attacks by non-native fish -- has thinned the genetically pure golden trout's population. It's estimated golden trout now occupy a native range of less than 20 square miles, including the Golden Trout Creek, above.

Biologists, using DNA tests, recently have determined golden trout are in danger of extinction because of breeding with human-stocked rainbow trout, which has created hybrid species. These hybrids often look like golden trout but are too genetically mixed to be considered pure. Extensive cattle grazing has compounded the problem by degrading the habitat where these fish live.

In response, state and federal agencies such as the California Department of Fish and Game, the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have joined fish protection groups California Trout and Trout Unlimited to solve the problem. Their collaborative effort, largely volunteer driven, is known as the Golden Trout Project.

"To many people, golden trout are a symbol of California's wilderness," California Trout spokesman David Finkel said. "If they were to go the way of the grizzly bear we would lose something very special."

Golden trout owe their appearance to unique evolution. Biologists believe them to be descendants of ancient sea-run rainbow trout that migrated from the inland waters of the Pacific and spread throughout the Sierra Nevada.

During the last ice age, which ended about 10,000 years ago, glaciers destroyed most of these ancestral fish in areas north and east of the Kern Plateau and created impassable waterfalls to the south that isolated surviving populations.

As a result, trout inhabiting the south fork of the Kern River and Little Kern River evolved independently across the millennia with no outside interference. Until humans showed up.

Early Sierra settlers were as enamored with golden trout as modern anglers are today. Beauty such as this, they reasoned, shouldn't be limited to such a small area.

A 90-page conservation plan released last year quotes early 1900s Kernville resident Ardis Walker, who wrote, "Many of the pioneer visitors to golden trout waters reacted with a desire that was almost compulsive; they shared a common missionary urge to spread the golden beauty and life of this native habitat to the barren waters of more elevated and more easterly and northerly lakes and streams."

According to state fish biologist Stan Stephens, it was common practice for settlers to carry golden trout in buckets of water on the backs of mules for up to a week at a time, stocking thousands of fish along the way. Some kept meticulous records; others none at all.

The problem of hybridization began in the 1930s when Fish and Game personnel and others planted non-native fish in Kennedy Meadows. With no barriers to upstream movement, these fish infiltrated the golden trout headwaters and exposed the natives to predation and competition.

"Nobody realized it at the time because they still looked like golden trout," state fish biologist Christy McGuire said.

At one time, genetically pure golden trout occupied a native range of 543 square miles. Today it's believed to be less than 20 — even though three barriers have been constructed to keep non-native fish out of the golden trout habitat.

The Golden Trout Project takes a four-pronged approach: locating and identifying golden populations throughout the Sierra; removing non-native and predatory fish from golden trout waters; restoring riparian habitat that has been damaged by cattle grazing; and public education and outreach.

Beginning last summer, volunteer fly fishermen from throughout the state were trained in genetic sampling. Anglers are then sent to lakes and streams where golden trout are known to have been transplanted, catch a sample of 40 fish and remove a portion of their tail fins before releasing them back into the wild. DNA testing will determine the genetic purity of these populations.

Other tasks include golden trout population monitoring, streambank data collection and habitat repair. Most of the work takes place at elevations above 9,000 feet.

According to Howard Kern, volunteer coordinator for Trout Unlimited, nearly 300 people will participate in restoration efforts this summer.

"It's fascinating work," Kern said. "When people get their sleeves rolled up, they really get into it."

Officials expect the Golden Trout Project, armed with federal and state funding as well as private donations, to continue for the next several years.

"You can't rush these things," Stephens said. "It took 100 years to screw this up. We're not going to fix it in two."

The reporter can be reached at marekw at fresnobee.com or (559) 441-6218.

See also: CGT 2005 Field Season Schedule

State, U.S. agencies join in an effort to save golden trout
By Clea Benson
Sacramento Bee
Sept 7, 2004

Protected from glaciers 10,000 years ago by the warmth of the Kern basin and then isolated from other fish by waterfalls, the bright-orange-bellied California golden trout evolved into a beautiful little species whose only native habitat stretches through 543 square miles of the Sierra Nevada.

See clipping, in 320kb PDF

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U.S. Fails to Protect State Trout, Group Says
By Julie Cart
Los Angeles Times
Sept 24, 2003

A conservation group on Tuesday served notice that it will sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, saying the agency has failed to respond to a court order directing it to protect the golden trout, the California state fish.

Decades of cattle grazing near Sierra Nevada streams and the longtime practice of stocking different fish species in the same streams have led to the rapid decline of the trout, experts say.

The group Trout Unlimited said the lawsuit was a last-ditch effort to force the Fish and Wildlife Service to evaluate the status of the fish and decide whether it belongs on the federal list of threatened and endangered species. The organization has been petitioning the Fish and Wildlife Service for three years to do more to protect the fish.

The Fish and Wildlife Service is responsible for enforcing the Endangered Species Act. The agency announced earlier this year that it lack funds to consider any more species for listing, saying that its resources are drained by constant lawsuits.

"We do this with more sorrow than anger," said Chuck Bonham, of Trout Unlimited's California office. "Their policy seems to be that they won't do anything until they are sued. The money spent on litigation - if you would apply it to conservation measures - we'd all be further toward our end goal."

The golden trout is native to the Sierra Nevada range, where many years of cattle grazing destroyed stream banks and removed vegetation that provided cover for the fish and regulated water temperature.

The fish also suffered from overzealous stocking of the region's rivers and streams. Non-native species such as rainbow and brown trout were introduced into the same waterways. The resultant interbreeding, called hybridization, compromised the gene pool for the golden trout and has made recovery of the pure species difficult.

"It's been breeding itself out of existence," said Harold Werner, biologist at Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Parks, where several trout species are found.

Adam Zerrenner, a biologist with the Fish and Wildlife Service, said the agency has been working with the U.S. Forest Service and the California Department of Fish and Game to help the trout.

He said that at least two measures are being used to prevent interbreeding. One method relies on installing dam-like barriers on sections of rivers where non-native trout mingle with golden trout. Another is for Fish and Game officers to remove exotic fish from rivers and streams and relocate them.

Copyright 2003 by the Los Angeles Times

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 23, 2003

Contact: Chuck Bonham

TROUT UNLIMITED WILL RETURN TO COURT TO FORCE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO PROTECT CALIFORNIA’S STATE FISH

Intent-to-sue notice is sent because of USFWS failure to act on golden trout petition

ALBANY, CA -- The national conservation organization Trout Unlimited has served notice to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) that they will return to court once again to force the agency to protect California’s state fish, the golden trout.

The 60-day notice of intent to sue, which was provided to Secretary Norton and the USFWS, comes one year after the USFWS, in response to a judge’s order, announced that Trout Unlimited’s petition to list the California golden trout as endangered contained substantial information that a federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) listing may be warranted. Since that announcement on September 20, 2002, the USFWS has not acted on the petition, even though they were required to do so within a year.

“Historically, Trout Unlimited is very reluctant to go to court – we would much rather spend our time and energy working with appropriate state and federal agencies to save fish, like the golden trout, from extinction,” said Chuck Bonham of Trout Unlimited’s California office. “Unfortunately, the federal government’s inaction has forced us to return to court once again.”

The filing of the 60-day notice is the latest action forced upon Trout Unlimited in a protracted legal battle that began three years ago when Trout Unlimited first filed a petition to list the California golden trout as endangered. In the fall of 2000, Trout Unlimited petitioned the USFWS to list the fish under the Endangered Species Act. By law, the USFWS is required to make a finding – within 90 days after receiving such a petition – as to whether the petition presented substantial scientific information indicating that a listing might be warranted.

However, the USFWS failed to make the 90-day finding, claiming budgetary constraints at the time. In February of 2001, Trout Unlimited notified the USFWS that if it did not act on the petition, the organization planned to pursue legal action. In spite of the threat of legal action, the USFWS still refused to act, forcing Trout Unlimited – represented by Earthjustice's Oakland office – to go to court.

On June 21, 2002, a federal district court judge ruled in Trout Unlimited’s favor, requiring that Gale Norton, the United States Secretary of the Interior, make a preliminary determination within 90 days as to whether the organization’s petition to list the California golden trout as endangered presented substantial information that a listing may be warranted.

“ We have been told that one of the reasons behind the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s failure to once again act to save this magnificent fish is because of a lack of funding. They simply will not consider our petition until we sue them. Ironically, every time we take them to court it costs the federal government money – money that could be better spent saving California’s state fish from extinction, the same fate the state’s animal – the grizzly bear – met,” said Bonham.

The California golden trout is native to only two high-altitude watersheds in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains. The trout has fallen victim to the careless stocking of non-native fish and more than a century of overgrazing by cattle and sheep. The species’ range, which once encompassed an estimated 450 miles of stream habitat in the upper South Fork Kern River and adjacent Golden Trout Creek, today is a small fraction of that historic range.

The U.S. Forest Service estimates that the golden trout is now secure in only 4 percent of its native range. After Trout Unlimited filed its initial petition in 2000, the Forest Service announced that it would rest a grazing allotment in the Golden Trout Wilderness Area for ten years – an allotment most recently held by the Anheuser-Busch Company. However, since the petition was first filed, new information has become available that shows that the California golden trout is even more imperiled than originally thought. Recent genetic testing by the University of California at Davis shows that there are significant numbers of hybrid fish scattered throughout the Golden Trout Creek watershed, and hybrids are in the South Fork of the Kern River as well, meaning that currently the native trout is not really secure anywhere.

Bonham said his organization has been working with the State of California to develop strategies to reduce the impact of stocking on the trout. “The State of California really appears to want to save the golden trout, as do we and countless others. It is rolling up its sleeves to grapple with tough restoration questions. The only thing that is standing in the way of that happening is a commitment from the federal government,” he said.

Trout Unlimited is the nation’s largest trout and salmon conservation organization with over 8,000 members in California and some 130,000 nationwide.

California’s State Fish Is Disappearing: Group wants golden trout on endangered list
BY Jim Doyle
San Francisco Chronicle
October 14, 2000

California's official state fish, the strikingly colored golden trout, is nearing extinction and needs immediate protection, according to a prominent conservation group. Trout Unlimited plans to petition the federal government on Monday to list the California golden trout as endangered. The petition, to be filed with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,will askfor protection of the species under the federal Endangered Species Act.

“It's sad, but I think it's a necessary step,” said Steve Trafton, a West Coast coordinator for Trout Unlimited, the nation's largest conservation organization dedicated to the preservation of cold-water fisheries. “And I think it's a step that will bring about change for the better.”

Endangered status would compel the federal wildlife agency to create a watershed management plan and a sufficient budget for the recovery of the species.

“There have been various actions taken to safeguard the species, but its status has become less secure,”Trafton said. “If we want to be sure California's magnificent golden trout still exist five to 10 years from now, then something must be done to permanently address habitat destruction caused by grazing on federal lands and years of stocking nonnative trout in the drainages where
the golden trout currently exist.”

The California golden trout is native to only two high-altitude watersheds in the southern Sierra Nevada, northeast of Bakersfield. The species' range once encompassed 450 miles of stream habitat in the upper South Fork Kern Riverand the nearby Golden Trout Creek.

The golden trout, which grows to less than a foot long in its native habitat, is often reddish gold with brilliant orange highlights and blue-gray spots on its belly and fins. The fish was designated as California's state fish in 1947.

The species has been widely transplanted and stocked throughout the Sierra. But there is only a tiny population of true natives. Today, native golden trout exist unthreatened by hatchery-spawned, nonnative trout and hybrids in only 4 percent of their historic range.

In 1978,the 300,000-acre Golden Trout Wilderness was created to help protect the fragile species. But grazing by cows and sheep on feder. al lands within the trout's 'watershed, along with hybridization, have taken. their toll on the native fish population.

Livestock tend to eat riparian vegetation, reducing shade and raising the water temperature, which hinders spawning. They also trample on stream banks and add sediment to creeks.

In recent years, U.S. Forest Service workers and state. Fish and Game workers have worked together to help the native trout.

“They have been doing yeoman's work up there, fighting to keep this species viable, Trafton said. "But. we feel there's more that could be done... The historic piecemeal approach to saving the golden trout has clearly failed in California.”

On the upper reaches of the South Fork Kern River, biologists have erected a series of artificial waterfalls designed to prevent nonnative trout from making their way upstream. survivingin the wild. Nonnatives are thriving on the lower reaches of the river.

Native species exist above a natural waterfall on 51 miles of Golden Trout Creek, but they have been threatened by nonnatives that have moved, via storm outlets of nearby lakes, into the creek's headwaters.  

In effect, the golden trout are hemmed in from above and below. 

Sometime, before the '1970s, hatchery-spawned golden trout crossed with rainbow trout. Conservationists insist that nonnatives are inferioer. “To an average angler, they bite, taste and fight like a golden trout. But genetically, they are not,” Trafton said.  

The hybrids are "less suited for surviving in the wild. They are more susceptible to disease and predations," he said. "We can't design better fish than the native fish. These are the fish that are meant to be in these watersheds. These fish, in the course of their evolution, have withstood tremendous changes."

Under federal law, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will have 90 days to conduct a preliminary review of Trout Unlimited's petition. Then, the agency will have a year to conduct an investigation and species review before issuing a draft finding. If the agency decides to list the fish, it also must decide
what recovery measures will be instituted.

This is a first step in what will probably be a very long process," Trafton said, "The hope is that with an endangered listing, a lot of attention and resources will suddenly be focused on the species."

Copyright 2000 San Francisco Chronicle