More than 4,000 Colorado River cutthroat trout have been released in the headwaters of West Willow, Pioche and She Canyon Creeks on the Tavaputs Plateau. Biologists hope to release as many as 10,000 more fingerling cutthroat trout in the coming weeks.

"This was an opportunity to provide anglers with a very unique opportunity and help prevent a listing at the same time," said Walt Donaldson, aquatics chief for the Division of Wildlife Resources. "To restore and help conserve a species heading in the wrong direction is always a positive."

The Book Cliffs roadless area cutthroat program started in the early 1990s when biologists collected trout already in the creeks - cutthroat, rainbow and brook trout placed there illegally - to see if any were pure strain Colorado River cutthroat. The tests showed no trout that qualified as pure Colorado River cutthroat and a decision was made to chemically treat the creeks to remove all the fish.

In 2002, biologists surveyed the creeks looking for natural barriers to prevent non-native fish from moving back into the designated cutthroat recovery area. Chemical treatments were done in the summer of 2006 and again this spring.

"After the September release, we will monitor the population to make sure they are reproducing and maintaining themselves," said Garn Birchell, a DWR regional fisheries biologist in charge of the program. "Hopefully they will take and we won't have to do any supplemental releases."

Employees from the U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Ute Indian Tribe helped with the project.

Birchell says there are no known records of pure strain Colorado River cutthroat being caught in the Book Cliffs, but that they may have been there historically and it makes sense to place the fish, listed a Sensitive Species in Utah, in an area where the population is protected primarily because of its remoteness.

"They very well could have been in there before people put brook trout in the system. There are other native species [speckled dace and mountain sucker] in the creeks," he said.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service denied listing of the Colorado River cutthroat on the Endangered Species List in June.

Speckled dace and mountain sucker will also be reintroduced to the creeks once a disease-free population can be certified for transplant.

Officials from Trout Unlimited, the national nonprofit trout conservation group, applaud efforts to boost the wild cutthroat population, but worry gas and energy leasing in the area could hurt the program.

"Anytime you are expanding the range of native trout and keeping them from the Endangered Species List, it is a good thing," said Corey Fisher, an oil and gas coordinator with T.U.'s Public Lands Initiative. But "energy exploration and development can easily impact sensitive populations like this one."

Fisher points out that the Book Cliffs roadless area is not an official management designation and therefore has no special protection.

Donaldson said the DWR owns most of the property in the canyon bottoms of the Book Cliffs Roadless Area. He is not sure of the plans for potential energy projects in the area.

"If it does happen, we need to make sure it is done right and in a way to protect the fragile resources of the area," Donaldson said.

The Book Cliffs are not a popular fishing destination, with most of the angling done by horseback riders or hunters, but wildlife officials say it could be a fine fishery once the native cutthroat are established.

"This project helps us meet our obligations to the citizens of the state to provide sport fishing opportunities and to the wildlife in our effort to preserve species," Donaldson said.

brettp@sltrib.com

Colorado River cutthroat trout facts

* The Colorado River cutthroat trout, Oncorhynchus clarkii pleuriticus, is a race, or subspecies, of the cutthroat trout that is native to the upper Colorado River drainage of Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico.

* Pure Colorado River cutthroat trout are rare throughout their historic range because of habitat loss/alteration, predation by and competition with nonnative fishes, and hybridization with nonnative trout, such as the rainbow and brook trout.

* Because of the many threats to the Colorado River cutthroat trout, the subspecies is included on the Utah Sensitive Species List.

* The Colorado River cutthroat trout primarily eats invertebrates, but adults also eat small fish.

* Like other cutthroat trout, the subspecies spawns in streams over gravel substrate in the spring. The cool, clear water of high-elevation streams and lakes is the preferred habitat for Colorado River cutthroat trout.

Source: Utah Division of Wildlife Resources