Conservation Groups File Suit to Protect Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout

The Center for Biological Diversity, Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, Ecology Center and Pacific Rivers Council filed suit today against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for illegally denying listing of the Yellowstone cutthroat trout as a threatened or endangered species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Fish and Wildlife denied listing of the trout in a February 2001 finding on a petition to list the species filed by a coalition of groups.

"The Fish and Wildlife Services finding utterly failed to consider the magnitude of threat facing the Yellowstone cutthroat trout," states Noah Greenwald, conservation biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity. "The Yellowstone cutthroat trout is beset by a multitude of threats, including non-native trout, habitat degradation, population fragmentation, and disease, and requires immediate protection under the Endangered Species Act."

Yellowstone cutthroat were once widely distributed throughout the Yellowstone River from its headwaters to the Tongue River, and the Snake River above Shoshone Falls, including portions of southern Montana, northwestern Wyoming, southeastern Idaho, and northern Nevada and Utah. They have been eliminated from most of this historic range by a combination of habitat degradation and replacement by non-native trout. Fish and Wildlifes finding, for example, concedes that pure Yellowstone cutthroat have been reduced to 10% of their historic range in Montana. "The Yellowstone cutthroat trout has been reduced to a fraction of its former range and continues to decline," concludes Greenwald. "Such decline clearly indicates the trout merits listing as endangered and that Fish and Wildlifes finding is both illogical and illegal."

Threats to the Yellowstone cutthroat trout are mounting even in the heart of its diminished range. In 1994, lake trout, a voracious, nonnative predator of cutthroat trout, were discovered in Yellowstone Lake, home of the largest remnant populations of Yellowstone cutthroat. And in 2003, whirling disease, an exotic trout parasite, was found to have decimated Yellowstone cutthroat trout in Pelican Creek, the principal spawning tributary of Yellowstone Lake that supported as many as 30,000 fish in the 1980s. "The illegal introduction of lake trout in Yellowstone Lake, continuing spread of other non-native trout throughout the range of the Yellowstone cutthroat trout, recent discovery of whirling disease in Yellowstone Lake, and ongoing habitat loss all indicate threats to the Yellowstone cutthroat trout are growing and that this unique trout needs more protection," states Greenwald.

"No known management measures can completely stop the spread of the principle threats, including disease, displacement by lake and brook trout, and hybridization with nonnative rainbow trout," said Dr. Chris Frissell, Senior Staff Scientist for the Pacific Rivers Council. "But we do know that each of these threats is exacerbated by habitat degradation from livestock grazing, mining, logging, roadbuilding, dams, and flow diversion. Protecting and restoring the last, best habitats of Yellowstone cutthroat trout, many of which remain without strict protection today, is absolutely critical for their future survival and recovery."

Yellowstone cutthroat trout are the nations first cutthroat trout. In 1884, Yellowstone cutthroat trout from Rosebud Creek, a southern Montana tributary to the Yellowstone River, were the first of now 14 recognized subspecies to be described as "cutthroat trout" because of their characteristic orange to crimson slashes underneath the jaw. In a story now common through much of their historic range, Yellowstone cutthroat trout in Rosebud Creek were long ago lost to habitat deterioration and displacement by introduced brook, brown and rainbow trout.

"The FWS failed to even look at the ample scientific data in the petition demonstrating that the Yellowstone cutthroat trout has been extirpated in nearly 60 percent of its historic range, and that the species is in real peril in those areas where it has so far managed to hang on" said Mike Harris, an attorney for Earthjustice, who is representing the groups. "This is yet another case of the Bush administration ignoring the science and its legal obligations under the ESA. As a result, Americans face the loss of a famed species like the Yellowstone cutthroat trout."