Red Lodge Clearinghouse

FWS to reconsider listing Bonneville cutthroat trout

Ten years after environmental groups first pressed the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect the Bonneville cutthroat trout under the Endangered Species Act, the agency has decided to reconsider adding the fish to the Endangered Species List.

In a Feb. 7 Federal Register notice, FWS announced it will undertake a new yearlong status review, which will analyze whether the Bonneville cutthroat trout is warranted for listing as threatened or endangered in a "significant portion" of its range.

Yet some conservationists and biologists believe listing is unnecessary for the Bonneville cutthroat trout. Chris Thomas, president of Trout Unlimited's Utah chapter, said he believes current conservation efforts by the states and conservation groups have been successful in recovering the species, and that an ESA listing would do little to help the Bonneville cutthroat trout.

"There's room for improvement, but I think they do a pretty good job," said Thomas of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources' conservation efforts, adding that other states also have conservation plans in place. "These guys are working hard, and the populations are going up."

Thomas added that the species still faces several threats, however, including introduced non-native fish, whirling disease -- a German import that has spread throughout watersheds in the interior West -- and siltation of streams from cattle grazing.

Roger Wilson, who oversees the Utah Division of Wildlife's conservation efforts for the fish, said the species' status has improved in recent years. New information that will be included in a new state report to be completed next month shows that the fish is now found in 38 percent of its historic range in the Bonneville Basin, he said.

"The bottom line we need to look at is, is the species warranted for listing?" Wilson said. "As far as the state of Utah is concerned, it's not warranted. We've seen improvement."

Wilson said there are some stream reaches that can never be restored because of water diversions, and the species continues to face threats such as grazing, oil and gas development, continued water diversions and roads. But an inter-agency conservation effort is working, and an ESA listing might actually hinder the recovery of the species, he said.

"The problem is when you have a species like the Bonneville where you have 30 years of conservation efforts taken, a listing will actually slow things down," he said. "The reason is FWS has to review every action you take. We might lose support from the locals for conservation in certain areas. I'm not saying that couldn't be overcome, it just makes things more cumbersome."

Paul Abate, a fisheries biologist in FWS's Utah field office, called the state-led conservation effort "a model program," adding that state officials "have fostered a lot of cooperation among the different agencies."

Noah Greenwald, science director for the Center for Biological Diversity, said that while the conservation agreement has led to some improvement, the states can do little to address threats like grazing and logging. And state wildlife agencies still stock streams with non-native game fish that compete with native trout, he said.

"There are all sorts of things those agreements are doing nothing about," Greenwald said. "With the combination of habitat loss, non-native species, and now, increasingly climate change, the Bonneville cutthroat trout needs the protection of the ESA to survive, and it needs protection throughout its current and historic range."

All or some?

FWS's upcoming determination on whether the trout needs protection in some or all of its range will be made under a new policy that was adopted last year and resulted from a series of lawsuits.

Environmental groups have been urging FWS to list the fish for a decade. In 1998, the Biodiversity Legal Foundation petitioned the service to list the species as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, and in 2001, the agency denied the petition, explaining that almost 300 viable, self-sustaining populations had been identified and that those populations were more genetically pure than biologists had initially thought. Furthermore, state and private conservation efforts were enough to recover the fish, the agency said.

The Center for Biological Diversity then filed suit, arguing that FWS had not properly considered whether the species was in peril in a significant portion of its range. Last year, a district court judge dismissed the case. Even so, the case prompted FWS to adopt a new policy in March 2007 that allows the agency to consider listing a species in only a portion of its range. The agency then decided to withdraw its "not warranted" finding and reconsider the trout for listing under the new policy, focusing on whether the fish is threatened or endangered in any part of its range.

FWS says the new policy will allow the agency to protect the trout where it is most at risk. But the center and other critics say the new policy allows FWS to leave out large swaths of habitat important for recovery and instead focus on just the most degraded areas.

According to the center, the Bonneville cutthroat trout has been eliminated from 90 percent of its range. "The vast majority of populations are threatened in one way or another, and in most cases they're isolated populations," said the center's Greenwald.

Abate, who will conduct the status review, said he will collect new information that has surfaced since the original 2001 determination was made. And this time, under the new "portion of range" policy, the agency will divide the trout into units and examine whether any of those populations merit listing, although FWS has not yet determined how it will parse the species, he said.

The Bonneville cutthroat trout, named after its distinctive reddish-orange slash across the jawline, is found primarily in the Bonneville Basin in Utah, but it is also found in the basin's reaches in Idaho, Nevada and Wyoming. It is one of 14 subspecies of cutthroat trout native to the interior West.

April Reese writes from Santa Fe, N.M.

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