Darwin in the Sierra Nevadas–We Had to Kill the Creek to Save the Trout: Here’s a pretty dubious plan: US Fish & Wildlife officials, in conjunction with California’s Fish and Game Dept., want to poison an 11-mile stretch of Silver King Creek in the Sierra Nevadas in order to commit fishocide on the non-native species that are crowding out the Paiute cutthroat trout. Why does anyone care enough about the Paiute to dump poison into a pristine waterway? Officials claim it is the rarest trout in America and possibly the world (it exists only in this one creek). Much as environmental groups love trout of all kinds, they are understandably skeptical that randomly killing other fish and creek denizens is the best way to favor one species over another. The pro-poison gang is trying to pad their case by saying the poisoning would also benefit the rare yellow-legged frog and the Yosemite toad. Hmmmm, these poisonings always have a way of proving the Law of Unintended Consequences. Other reasons to be skeptical: 1) the good ol’ Paiute, while undoubtedly rare, is itself a non-native species, having been transplanted to the Sierra Nevada about 100 years ago….and 2) the stretch of Silver King Creek that officials want to poison to boost Paiute populations is the stretch easily accessible to fishermen. Ahhh, so it’s really just a plan to make life easy for California’s omnivorous anglers, disguised as environmental do-goodism. TWC’s position: Leave the creek alone and let the species that happen to be there–native and nonnative–duke it out poison-free. If the fishing lobby is too lazy to hike hard to find Paiute, screw ’em….



Precious Paiute: “Eat poison, losers. I’m not much to look at, but I’m really rare and I need more room to roam….”