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Bonneville Cutthroat Trout
Bonneville Cutthroat Trout
The Bonneville cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarki utah) is one of fourteen species of cutthroat trout native to the western United States. It is also one of several subspecies that once inhabited Lake Bonneville which covered much of Utah, eastern Nevada, and Southern Idaho. Today, what remains of the Latke Bonneville, the Great Salt Lake is much too salty for fish. Since the drainage of that lake, the fish has been isolated in small populations in the headwaters of cool mountain streams and lakes of what was once the Bonneville Drainage basin. The USFWS has documents well over Bonneville cutthroat trout populations occupying over 850 miles of river and stream habitat, but this is only 5 to 10 percent of the historical range, with most of the existing populations very small and isolated.
Like other members of the trout family, Bonneville cutthroats prefer cool, clean, rivers and streams with well oxygenated water. Other riparian characteristics they prefer include low levels of fine sediment in channel bottoms and well-distributed pools as well as stable stream banks with abundant, overhanging vegetative cover. Their diet consists primarily of stream insects, but large individuals also eat other fish. They spawn in the springtime near the mouths of streams over gravel beds.
Like other cutthroat trout, Bonneville cutthroats have a “cut” or patch of orange or red on their throat. The most obvious difference between cutthroat trout and rainbow trout is the presence of basibranchial (hyoid) teeth in the throat between the gill arches and the back of the tongue. They also have larger spots than raindow trout and have longer heads and jaws.
The Bonneville cutthroat faces many challenges as it tries to survive in the American West. Threats to its continued persistence include, habitat damage from livestock overgrazing and riparian deforestation, predation and competition by non-native fish (including continued stocking of nonnatives), fragmentation of habitat from barriers to fish passage, entrainment, and thermal barriers due to dams and water diversions, and aquatic habitat degradation that results in sediment loading, elevated temperatures, changes to stream structure, and declines in water quality.
The Land Trust has protected over 1,000 acres in the Bear River which flows into the Great Salt Lake. Of these acres, over 300 ares along the Bear River protect and enhance the habitat along the river for Bonneville cutthroats and other native species. We have also protected 600 acres of headwater habitat that is ideal spawning habitat with a known population of the Bonneville cutthroat trout. Funding for many of the land trust projects in the Bear River drainage is provided by the Bear River Hydroelectric Project’s Environmental Coordinating Committee, a stakeholder group that approves expenditure of PacifiCorp Energy hydro project environmental enhancement funds dedicated to improving water quality and native fish populations along the Bear River in Idaho.
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