{"id":53615,"date":"2020-06-01T19:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-02T01:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/rare-cutthroat-trout-saved-in-416-fire-set-to-be-released-back-into-the-wild\/"},"modified":"2020-06-02T01:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-06-02T01:00:00","slug":"rare-cutthroat-trout-saved-in-416-fire-set-to-be-released-back-into-the-wild","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/rare-cutthroat-trout-saved-in-416-fire-set-to-be-released-back-into-the-wild\/","title":{"rendered":"Rare cutthroat trout, saved in 416 Fire, set to be released back into the wild"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/p>\n

While firefighting crews were in the throes of battling the 416 Fire as it rapidly spread through the San Juan National Forest north of Durango in June 2018, an unlikely rescue mission was being hatched.<\/p>\n

Jim White, an aquatic biologist for Colorado Parks and Wildlife, said plans had to move fast as the blaze started inching toward prime habitat for a rare lineage of cutthroat trout that lives in the remote side streams of Hermosa Creek.<\/p>\n

Colorado Parks and Wildlife knew what was at risk: the potential loss of a native fish that had survived in isolation, against the odds, through all the disturbances of the West\u2019s settlement.<\/p>\n

With a massive wildfire as the latest threat, the survival of these trout depended on a small crew from CPW and the U.S. Forest Service who were granted special permission to enter the fire zone, with only hours to work.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe couldn\u2019t have anything go wrong,\u201d White said. \u201cBut if a fire burned through that drainage, you could lose an entire population and those genetics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, two years later, the fish saved during the rescue will be released back into the wild.<\/p>\n

Surviving the decades<\/div>\n

By the late 1880s, Western settlers fished the Colorado River cutthroat trout to the point of extinction, and then dumped more competitive species of trout into rivers and streams to keep the food source available.<\/p>\n

The magnitude of the cutthroat\u2019s loss has never been truly quantified, but best estimates show its range \u2013 which once spanned Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming \u2013 has been cut by about 85%.<\/p>\n

For the past 50 years, CPW biologists have scoured the backcountry looking for surviving populations of cutthroats. In the 1980s and 1990s, fish suspected of fitting the bill were discovered in eight small streams in Southwest Colorado.<\/p>\n

But at the time, technology didn\u2019t exist to say for sure.<\/p>\n

\"Toby
Toby Mourning, manager of the Durango Fish Hatchery, scans the tag of a San Juan lineage Colorado cutthroat trout Tuesday at the hatchery. The cutthroat, saved from the Hermosa Creek watershed during the 416 Fire in 2018, will be returned to the wild this summer.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

In 2018, however, DNA testing confirmed those suspicions, linking a cutthroat found in the San Juan River basin to fish samples collected and preserved in 1874 by naturalist Charles E. Aiken, who donated two trout to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was super-exciting,\u201d Mike Japhet, a retired CPW biologist who helped discover the San Juan lineage of Colorado River cutthroat trout in the early 1990s, told The Durango Herald<\/em> at the time. \u201cIt\u2019s like going on a treasure hunt and finding you really discovered a hidden treasure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rescue mission<\/div>\n

Everyone knew summer 2018, with its historic drought conditions, was going to be a bad year for wildfire, White said. In preparation, the groundwork for trapping some of the cutthroats in the Hermosa Creek watershed was laid the winter before.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew a fire was a distinct possibly where one of these rare streams are and it could be terrible,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Eggs
Eggs collected from San Juan lineage Colorado cutthroat trout rest in an incubator at the Durango Fish Hatchery.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

So when a small spark north of Durango ballooned into the 54,000-acre fire that swept through the drainage, crews were ready to go. A small team of about seven people started early, taking ATVs as far into the backcountry as possible.<\/p>\n

After the road ended, crews hiked 2 miles to reach the remote stream. Once there, they had three hours to catch as many fish as possible before having to escape the area before nightfall.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was spooky,\u201d White said, recalling the fire burning off in the distance. \u201cIt had to be carefully orchestrated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the odds, 54 cutthroats were recovered.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe next day, the fire mushroomed, and we would never have been allowed back there,\u201d White said.<\/p>\n

Wild struggles in captivity<\/div>\n

The fish were brought back to the hatchery in Durango where they have been kept in isolation. At first, biologists were concerned because the fish did not spawn last year and some died of a parasite.<\/p>\n

This year, however, CPW hit a stroke of luck.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not getting a lot of eggs, but enough to provide some for a limited amount of stocking and some to start a captive population that will be sustainable,\u201d Durango Hatchery Manager Toby Mourning said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\"Toby
Toby Mourning, manager of the Durango Fish Hatchery, scans the tag of a San Juan lineage Colorado cutthroat trout. During the 416 Fire in 2018, a small crew from Colorado Parks and Wildlife and the U.S. Forest Service recovered 54 of the rare cutthroats from the Hermosa Creek watershed. &#x201c;The next day, the fire mushroomed, and we would never have been allowed back there,&#x201d; said Jim White, an aquatic biologist for Colorado Parks and Wildlife.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

This summer, CPW intends to trek the fish back to their native habitat and release them into the wild. And with the captive population at the hatchery, the agency can start to restock other streams throughout the Southwest.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we hadn\u2019t saved them, we would have seen substantial loss,\u201d White said. \u201cBut now we can expand their range.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recovering, slowly<\/div>\n

By all accounts, aquatic biologists are hopeful reintroduction will be successful.<\/p>\n

The 416 Fire has had substantial impact on water quality in the Hermosa Creek watershed, causing several debris flows and fish kills, especially in July and September 2018 when heavy monsoons hit the burn scar.<\/p>\n

But slowly, the watershed is showing signs of recovering, said Scott Roberts, an aquatic biologist for Mountain Studies Institute, which is leading a robust study tracking water quality after the 416 Fire.<\/p>\n

\"Records
Records are kept of the San Juan lineage Colorado cutthroat trout to make sure eggs are fertilized by different males on Tuesday at the Durango Fish Hatchery.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Watersheds usually take about three to five years to recover after a wildfire compromises the drainage. Roberts said all indicators point to Hermosa Creek being on track for that time frame.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe impacts are highly localized, some areas were hard hit and the habitat transformed, while other places are trending toward pre-fire conditions quickly,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I feel confident there are areas fish can be successful up there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The upper reaches of Hermosa Creek boast the largest continuous stretch of native Colorado River cutthroat trout in the state thanks to a dedicated conservation effort that dates back to the early 1990s<\/p>\n

\u201cThe watershed is not perfect, but it\u2019s stabilized, and we feel we can responsibly move fish up there,\u201c White said. \u201cThis is definitely a one small step at a time process, but we\u2019re excited to have some fish to work with.\u201d<\/p>\n

jromeo @durangoherald.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

mounted rescue mission during wildfire in 2018<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":53616,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[2838,1030,738,13,28,884,445,295,84],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-53615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-416-fire","tag-environment","tag-environmental-issue","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-hermosa","tag-newsletter-lead","tag-water","tag-wildfire"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53615"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=53615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}