CALGARY - Many animal species are threatened because they face destruction of their land, or suffocation in the hands of a hunter. The westslope cutthroat trout, an ancient fish many anglers and environmentalists are struggling to protect, suffers that and more.
The fish is fading away, mainly due to interbreeding with the larger rainbow trout, a species introduced to southern Alberta by humans.
Over the years, the bloodline of the province's westslope cutthroat trout has become diluted and hybridized. Native stocks occupy less than five per cent of their original range.
"He's been around for a couple of million of years, that one," Kyle McNeilly, a Calgary angler and former commercial trout farmer, says of the westslope cutthroat. "He's the cold-water-tolerant subspecies compared to most other cutthroats."
McNeilly believes the fish is important enough that in the few instances where it can be separated from rainbow trout, it should be, though it's often like trying to take the "cream out of your coffee."
Ottawa and the provincial government say they are moving to protect the remaining Alberta westslope cutthroat--all in danger of melding into the genetics of the rainbow trout.
There are also populations in British Columbia and some northern states, but the Alberta westslope cutthroat is a candidate for legal listing under Alberta's Wildlife Act and Canada's Species at Risk Act.
A joint federalprovincial recovery team is meeting, and the group is hoping to have a draft plan ready by next year.
"Hybridization is a big problem because that could just wipe the species right out of existence," said Jennifer Earle, a fisheries biologist for the Alberta government's fish and wildlife division.
Getting rid of rainbow trout, which now flourish and are a staple for anglers, is not an option, said Earle, who co-chairs the recovery team.
"The team has to take into account all sorts of different user-groups, opinions and viewpoints."
The question from the trout's backers is whether action will happen quickly enough to protect the small, isolated groups of pure populations cornered in the Bow and Oldman river headwaters, where less-robust rainbow trout cannot survive.
"The situation is really critical," said David Mayhood, an independent biologist who specializes in the ecology and conservation of western Canadian fish.
Mayhood said the first threat to the westslope cutthroat--named in part for a splash of rouge under its jaw--came more than a century ago when the first settlers "fished the daylights" out of a once-abundant population.
Restocking in the decades afterward focused on fish foreign to the Eastern Slopes of the Rockies, such as the rainbow and brook trout.
"They dumped those on top of weakened stocks of the native fish," said Mayhood, who is based in Calgary.
Not only did native fish often have their food eaten and their breeding grounds overtaken, but interbreeding became common.
"Once these genes are all mixed together, it's impossible to sort them out," Mayhood said.
Lessons have been learned. For the most part, Alberta fishermen are now only permitted to catch and release westslope cutthroat trout--except in water bodies that are stocked. And rainbow trout are only stocked in areas with no westslope cutthroat trout.
However, the problems that began in bygone days still persist.
In Banff National Park, aquatics specialist Charlie Pacas said nonnative brook trout are also out-competing the bull trout, another struggling native species.
"They would stock with species they thought people wanted to catch," Pacas said of past fish practices in the park. "That started a lot of the tourism industry."
Pacas said he often thinks about the Banff long nose dace, which took thousands of years to evolve from the more common dace but was extinct by 1987 after being ravaged by chlorinated water, sewage and competing non-native fish.
"One of the things that we never realized until we started putting some of these stories together is how significant the changes on the landscape have been," Pacas said, also noting the dams in the park.
For his part, McNeilly said so long as westslope cutthroat trout are released after being caught, angling does not need to end.
And one reason why it's important to preserve westslope cutthroat, and possibly expand its range and numbers, is it's a highly "catchable" fish compared to the rainbow or the brown trout, McNeilly said.
This is because the trout thrives in cold streams and rivers, where there are fewer food opportunities, and has adapted a survival instinct to react quickly to stimulus--which even includes lures.
"Everybody likes fishing, but most people like catching fish more. What would you rather catch--30 a day, or three?"
kcryderman@theherald.canwest.com
