OURAY COUNTY, Colo. (KKTV) – After a short window of opportunity, Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) members said they were able to rescue a “unique” native fish in a small mountain creek from the Gold Mountain Fire in Ouray County.
With the wildfire burning at 38,044 acres and 24 percent containment as of Tuesday evening, a team of 11 CPW staff said they traveled into Nate Creek last Wednesday on the west side of Cimarron Ridge. They traveled with the escort of multiple fire management staff to capture as many Uncompahgre cutthroat trout as possible before weather conditions could make working in the active burn area too dangerous.
CPW said the team was able to secure 103 of the trout to transport to a state fish hatchery for safekeeping.
The cutthroat trout in Nate Creek contain unique genetics that do not exist anywhere else, according to CPW. The fish are an “irreplaceable remnant” of the native cutthroat trout populations that historically occupied numerous creeks in the Uncompahgre River system around Ouray and Ridgway.
“These beautiful fish represent a living part of the history of this place,” Eric Gardunio, a CPW aquatic biologist who was a part of that team, said. “They also fill a unique role in the function of the ecosystems they inhabit. Currently, CPW is trying to restore them to many of the streams where they have been lost. They are resilient and have persisted in harsh environments for thousands of years, and they can flourish again if we give them a chance.”
CPW said its team was warned to be aware of falling trees and still-burning roots under the ash that can be dangerous cavities to step into.
“It was a new experience for our crew members to go into an active wildfire zone,” Gardunio said. “After hiking through burned and smoldering forest, it was a relief to get to the creek and do the work we know how to do – catching fish.”
Two Gold Mountain Fire personnel carry buckets of fish up through a burned area of the forest above Nate Creek.(Colorado Parks and Wildlife)
The team traveled through Owl Creek Pass Road and from there they broke into three units to access the stream in different sections, CPW said. They descended three-quarters of a mile and 400 vertical feet through the burned forest into the canyon.
Once at the creek, CPW said team members used electrofishing backpacks to momentarily stun fish and make them easier to net and place into buckets of water from the creek.
Gardunio uses an electrofishing backpack while CPW staff and fire personnel look on with nets and buckets ready to secure fish.(Colorado Parks and Wildlife)
The three units covered roughly three-quarters of a mile of stream and netted 103 cutthroat trout ranging between 3 and 7 inches in length, CPW said.
“I am happy with the number of fish we were able to rescue,” Gardunio said. “I think that it was almost exactly what we were hoping to get.”
The cutthroat trout were taken to CPW’s Rifle Falls Fish Hatchery where there was available isolation unit space, CPW said.
CPW said finding space for these trout was a challenge, as many CPW hatchery isolation units were occupied by greenback cutthroats rescued by the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s Leadville and Hotchkiss national fish hatcheries because of threats to the hatcheries from the Willow Fire in Lake County.
CPW said the trout are kept in an isolation unit to prevent any risk of any potential disease spread from the wild fish to the hatchery-raised fish at the facility.
Rescued Uncompahgre cutthroat trout are pictured in a circular tank inside the Rifle Falls Hatchery after being safely delivered from Nate Creek.(Colorado Parks and Wildlife)
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