Headline: Study: Wrong fish used to save species
Key fact:
A 20-year government effort to restore the population of an endangered native trout in Colorado has made little progress because biologists have been stocking some of the waterways with the wrong fish, a new study says.
Advances in genetic testing helped biologist discover the error, which was called a potential black eye, but they said there is still hope for restoring the greenback cutthroat trout.
An NRO reader’s first question would be, “well, how much exactly did these morons waste?” If you want the answer, don’t click on this AP article because that’s obviously not an important aspect of the story.
But, I won’t fault the scientists too much. The way they actually stock the streams of Colorado looks like a lot of fun. I mean, how many people can say they get to carpet bomb lakes with fish for a living?
It’s been raining cats and dogs lately in Colorado’s high country. Now it’s raining trout.
Three hundred twenty-five thousand trout, to be exact.
The Colorado Division of Wildlife started using aircraft to stock high-mountain lakes throughout the state with fingerling trout Monday. Modified Cessna 185 aircraft are undertaking difficult maneuvers to skim within 125 feet of the lakes’ surfaces and drop their cutthroat cargo.
The aerial stocking operation will continue through mid-September and include a handful of lakes in the Roaring Fork Valley basin. If you’re hiking to American Lake, Anderson Lake or Avalanche Lake and see a plane dumping something into the water, don’t freak out and call Homeland Security.
Don’t laugh. It happened: In 2002, when the nation remained on high alert after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, an aircraft with extra trout dumped its load on Ruedi Reservoir. The water that exited the plane with the trout appeared to people on the shore to be a white powdery substance. Their report to authorities touched off an investigation. State wildlife officials had to sell the fish story to the FBI and Secret Service.