Bringing back the Lahontan cutthroat trout to Lake Tahoe
Submitted by Jeff Munson on Tue, 08/20/2024 - 5:50pm
There is only one native trout in Lake Tahoe, the Lahontan cutthroat, and there has been an ongoing effort to bring back the fish that disappeared from the lake almost 90 years ago.
There are many reasons the Lahontan cutthroat trout disappeared from Lake Tahoe including overfishing, logging, water diversions, mining, and perhaps one of the biggest reasons, the introduction of non-native species that fed on the cutthroat.
For thousands of years, both the Paiute and Washoe people fished the native trout as they spent their summers around Lake Tahoe and Pyramid Lake. The trout spawned in the lower Truckee River, providing ample annual supplies for the tribes. The Indian method of spearing and trapping the trout kept their people fed, but they never fished out more than needed.
When tourists started to come to Lake Tahoe after the first Transcontinental Railroad connected the country to the Sierra Nevada in 1868, they found the fish in Lake Tahoe plentiful. They also liked the way the native people fished and the spawning flow dwindled when fishermen trapped the cutthroat in the Truckee River. The growing number of people living in San Francisco and Sacramento after the 1849 Gold Rush took notice, and commercial fishing found Lake Tahoe. Large nets pulled fish out and they were transported off the mountain.
Dams placed on the Truckee to irrigate Nevada also cut off fish supplies as did the problematic dust from sawmills, cutting fish off from their natural flow.
Resort owners and other people at Tahoe didn't want the cutthroat to disappear since fishing them was so popular, that hatcheries popped up along the shore. The problem with this method of restocking was the non-native fish that were put into Lake Tahoe. In 1887, Mackinaw (lake) trout were planted in Tahoe, but this fish was in direct competition with the cutthroat trout. It also carried a parasite that pretty much put the nail in the coffin of the native trout.
Until recent years, that is.
This is the third consecutive year the Lahontan National Fish Hatchery's Tahoe Basin Recovery team from Gardnerville has provided 100,000 Pilot Peak strain of the Lahontan cutthroat trout annually to be reintroduced into Lake Tahoe. Since 2006 they have produced and stocked Pilot Peak strain Lahontan cutthroat trout in support of conservation and recovery in their native waters of Nevada and Eastern Sierra. (they stock 500,000 total with the rest going into Pyramid, and other lakes and rivers)
While 100,000 may seem like a large number, it is quite small when looking at the massive body of water, according to Roy Ulibarri, a senior fishery biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He is based at the Lahontan National Fish Hatchery Complex in Gardnerville.
"It will take some time to re-establish," said Ulibarri.
Ulibarri and his team are tracking the success of the program in two ways - a t-bar anchor tag attached to the stocked fish's dorsal fin, and an acoustic tag that is placed inside the fish.
Those fishing in Lake Tahoe who catch one of the cutthroat trout with the t-bar can follow the instructions on it and call in details about the fish. This way the scientists can see where the fish have traveled, and how big they have gotten. The growth and movement are important information. The Pilot Peak can grow up to about 25 pounds, and many of the 100,000 stocked in 2024 can be expected to winter over and keep growing. The dorsal fin t-bar holds a special hotline phone number and a unique identification number for the fish.
The acoustic tracking is done on a much smaller sampling and the message from the fish is tracked by receivers placed in the lake. As soon as the fish leaves the lake, the tracking ends, and the message is lost. This method can help the scientists see how deep the fish go, and where they are picked up by being fished. In 2023 there were 20 fish introduced into the lake with the sonar tracking, 30-40 will have it this year.
Ulibarri said they've only received a handful of calls from those who have caught the t-bar fish. He said the caught ones were recorded in South Lake Tahoe, the Tahoe Keys, and Emerald Bay.
"It is just a drop in the bucket," Ulibarri said of those messages received.
The Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe has worked in partnership with the Lahontan National Fish Hatchery to help restock Pyramid Lake and the Truckee River, and that program has been successful, and the partnership with the Washoe Tribe and Lake Tahoe could net the same results.
The Fish Hatchery's Genetics Management Program used DNA found in museum specimens found in harvested Lahontan cutthroat trout between 1872 and 1911 to get the strain used today to stock Lake Tahoe.
"We are very honored to partner with the Tribe for reintroducing the native fish that is their culture," said Ulibarri.
The Washoe Environmental Protection Department has been involved in the restocking of the Lahontan at Meeks Bay, their tribal land.
The Washoe said it is a very important part of the restoration of Lake Tahoe to reintroduce the cutthroat. The Meeks Bay event allows them to share their history and explain why they are doing the fish stocking.
The program is expensive and funding comes from Congress and grants for research through Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act (SNPLMA) funds.
