CPW trout rescue mission restocks Pikes Peak creeks
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO)-- Colorado Parks and Wildlife Rangers went behind fire lines in 2016 during the Hayden Pass wildfire to rescue 158 cutthroat trout. Now, their decedents will have a new home on Pikes Peak.
South Ruxton Creek is located at about 10,000 feet altitude on the South Slope of Pikes Peak in the Pike National Forest. It will become the third stream in the region where CPW aquatic biologists are working to restore trout, informally called Hayden Creek cutthroat. The fish will also be introduced by CPW into North French Creek on the northwest slope of Pikes Peak next week.
CPW began looking for remote, fishless, high-altitude creeks to serve as a possible new homes for these important cutthroat trout not long after the July 2016 fire charred 16,754 acres and filled the South Prong of Hayden Creek with ash and debris, making it uninhabitable for fish.
As the fire raged, staff from CPW and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) crossed fire lines to rescue a portion of the population before monsoon rains flushed the creek with sediment.
CPW removed 158 cutthroat trout from the stream, took them to the Roaring Judy Hatchery isolation facility near Crested Butte and spawned the fish the following spring. Now, CPW is stocking them into several streams within the Arkansas Basin to ensure these unique cutthroat genes survive.
These trout contain genetic markers that match a museum specimen collected from the Arkansas River basin in 1890, according to CPW.
CPW and the USFS have established populations of Hayden Creek cutthroats in two creeks – Newlin and Cottonwood – and hope to stock them in up to five streams in the Arkansas basin where these fish could be introduced. Spreading them across the region makes them less vulnerable to extinction due to an isolated catastrophic fire, flood or disease outbreak.
“Stocking these unique fish into Ruxton Creek is a key step to preserving these unique genes and ensuring we continue to have them on the landscape,” said Josh Nehring, CPW assistant aquatic section manager.
Last fall, CPW aquatic biologist Cory Noble identified Ruxton Creek as a rare fishless creek and determined its habitat would be favorable for Hayden Creek cutthroat. Lack of fish makes the process of establishing a population much easier. And a waterfall creates a natural barrier to any non-native fish invading the stocked stretch of water, Nehring said.
Ruxton also is ideal, he said, because of the cooperation CPW enjoys from USFS and CSU.
“We have great partnerships with the USFS and Colorado Springs Utilities,” Nehring said. “We have had lots of discussions about this possibility and all of the agencies have agreed to move forward because it will mean a lot to the conservation of this fish.”
