WANTED: MORE
COLORADO
NATIVES
Trout Unlimited wants to see more wild
trout in Colorado’s rivers and lakes and fewer diseased fish. If a
new Wildlife Commission policy becomes a reality, the nonprofit
group may get its wish. Issued in November, the state policy
emphasizes restoring streams and native trout like the Colorado
cutthroat – a departure from the current practice of releasing some
16 million hatchery trout, mostly non-native rainbow and brown
trout, into the state’s waters each year. The state’s changing
priorities “let nature do more of the job and hatcheries less of
the job,” says Trout Unlimited’s David Nickum. He hopes that a
Trout Unlimited report, released in December 1997, will provide the
agency with a “road map for implementation” of its policy. But
while Colorado does expect to reduce its reliance on hatcheries,
Todd Malmsbury from the Division of Wildlife warns: “We’re not
going to have the brown and rainbow trout that Trout Unlimited
members love to catch without a hatchery program.”
To obtain a copy of the 66-page Trout Unlimited
report, Fishing for Answers: Status and Trends for Coldwater
Fisheries Management in Colorado, contact the Colorado chapter of
Trout Unlimited at 2001 E. Easter #100, Littleton CO 80122, call
303/837-9383, or find the report on the Web at
http://www.tu.org.
* Michelle
Nijhuis
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Wanted: More Colorado Natives.
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