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Expedition Outfitters "Your Guide to Fly Fishing Texas and Outdoor Adventures Beyond"
Conservation Projects and Initiatives
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Please join Expedition Outfitters in supporting these important
conservation projects and initiatives. "Together we can make a difference!" The Truchas River Chapter of Trout Unlimited, Santa Fe, New Mexico, has submitted
a grant application and plan to restore and preserve the
"Rio Grande Cutthroat Trout." The Guadalupe River Chapter of Trout Unlimited, "GRTU" has received a coldwater outreach conservation funding proposal to help facilitate the plan. Project overview A population of approximately 4,500 genetically pure Rio Grande Cutthroat Trout inhabit 7.1 miles of Alamitos Creek and its unnamed tributary. The Rio Grande Cutthroat Trout is the only trout native to the Rio Grande drainage of Texas, New Mexico and Colorado; and to the Pecos River drainage of New Mexico and Texas. In Trout and Salmon of North America, Dr. Robert J Behnke writes that there are credible reports from Civil War times that Rio Grande Cutthroat Trout occured in the Davis Mountains of west Texas in tributaries of both the Rio Grande and Pecos. Currently, the Rio Grande Cutthroat has been reduced to less than 10% of its historical range and the US Fish and Wildlife Service is currently conducting a status review to determine if the trout should be listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act. The purpose of this project is to place a permanent barrier to fish passage on Alamitos Creek. Alamitos Creek rises in the Pecos Wilderness on the Camino Real Ranger District of the Carson National Forest (the Carson) and flows into the Rio Pueblo, a tributary of the Rio Grande. The 4,500 pure Rio Grande Cutthroats have until now been protected from encroachment from non-native trout by an irrigation diversion dam and by the periodic dewatering of Alamitos Creek below the diversion. That diversion and periodic dewatering, however, are not adequate to protect the population from encroachment by non-native trout, and it is not known why non-native trout have not moved above the diversion. If the population can be protected now, from introgression from rainbow trout or depredation from brown trout occurs, the population can be saved without the use of piscicides (fish poisons) to remove non-native fish. All that is required to protect the population is the construction of a permanent fish passage barrier upstream of the current diversion. Jeff Schmitt is spearheading this joint project for Guadalupe River Trout Unlimited. Go to: www.grtu.org for more information. |
Always practice catch and release!