Lahontan cutthroat trout remains threatened in Nevada

Posted at the Tahoe News and Tribune, by Associated Press
September 10, 2008

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has rejected a petition to end federal protection for the Lahontan cutthroat trout — the Nevada state fish which has been listed under the Endangered Species Act for nearly four decades.

A group called Dynamic Action on Wells Group, Inc., had sought to declassify the fish as threatened, claiming among other things in a December 2006 petition that removing the fish from federal oversight was warranted because of habitat improvements in the Pyramid Lake-Truckee River Basin.

But Bob Williams, field supervisor for the service in Reno, said while efforts are being made to restore the native fish, it still faces many challenges to its existence across its habitat range.

“We did not find that the petition presented substantial scientific or commercial information indicating that removing Lahontan cutthroat trout from the list may be warranted,” Williams said.

Clifford Thompson, a Yerington resident and a member of the group originally formed to protect domestic water wells, characterized the fuss over Lahontan cutthroat a “farce.”

The “fish is a fake fish to start with,” he said when reached by phone Wednesday. “They’ve been extinct for how many thousands of years.” Thompson, who described himself as a “student of the constitution,” argued that the Lahontan trout found in the Walker River Basin were bred in fisheries and therefore are not the same genetically as the historic species and are undeserving of protection.