Conservation group sues to protect cutthroat trout
Suit seeks endangered species status for NM’s state fish
Concerned that time is running out for the Rio Grande cutthroat trout, a conservation organization has sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over the federal agency’s decision not to protect the fish under the Endangered Species Act.
The Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit organization based in Tucson, filed the suit Friday in U.S. District Court in Denver. The suit not only seeks endangered species status for the Rio Grande cutthroat trout, a cold-water fish found in Colorado and New Mexico, but also challenges a new Fish and Wildlife policy that assesses a species’ status based solely on its current range, no matter how much that current range might be diminished from its historic range.
Michael Robinson, conservation advocate for the center, claims the cutthroat trout, which is the New Mexico state fish, is today limited
to tiny headwater streams in only 11 percent of its historic range.
Robinson said that, in response to a 1998 center petition, Fish and Wildlife decided in 2008 that the cutthroat trout warranted protection, but then denied protection in 2014.
“Without help from the Endangered Species Act, this fish will disappear forever,” Robinson said. “The cutthroat trout would be in better shape if it had been listed in 2002 or 2008. Delay is not the friend of this creature. I don’t think it is too late. But the trout needs more protection and not more empty promises.”
Deep crimson slashes on its throat give the cutthroat trout its colorful name. The fish are light rose to red-orange on the sides and pink or yelloworange on the belly.
The center charges that the cutthroat trout’s continued existence has been threatened by logging, road-building, livestock grazing, pollution and global warming.
“Global warming results in catastrophic fires that reduce shade for streams and lead to silt runoff in streams,” Robinson said.
He said Congress specified that imperiled wildlife should be afforded legal and practical protection before it’s reduced to the point of looming extinction.
“What a travesty that we now have to file a lawsuit to get the government to protect the Rio Grande cutthroat trout when it’s already gone from almost all of its historic range,” he said.
Fish and Wildlife told the Journal that the agency does not comment on issues or topics that are the subject of ongoing litigation.