- Alvord cutthroat trout
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Alvord cutthroat trout Conservation status Scientific classification Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Actinopterygii Order: Salmoniformes Family: Salmonidae Genus: Oncorhynchus Species: O. clarki Subspecies: O. c. alvordensis Trinomial name Oncorhynchus clarki alvordensis Main article: Cutthroat troutThe Alvord cutthroat trout, Oncorhynchus clarki alvordensis, was a subspecies of cutthroat trout. It was native to spring-fed creeks that ran down to Alvord Dry Lake in southeast Oregon, which was a large lake during the ice ages and an isolated drainage, part of the Great Basin today. This is one of the two cutthroat trout taxa considered extinct because all known populations are hybridized with Rainbow trout which were introduced into streams in the Alvord basin in the 1920s, resulting in cutbows.
The subspecies name was given in 2002 by Robert Behnke (Trout and Salmon of North America).
In the fall 2005 issue of Trout (the magazine of Trout Unlimited), in an article titled Ivory-Billed Trout, Dr. Behnke notes a historical reference that the now “extinct” Alvord Cutthroat Trout had been transplanted into another basin adjacent to the Alvord Basin, and that this transplant occurred prior to the 1928 introduction of rainbows into Trout Creek. Dr. Behnke reflects on which stream these trout may have been introduced into.
In the winter 2007 issue of Trout Magazine, in an article titled Toward Definitiveness, Dr. Behnke relates a summer 2006 electrofishing (sampling) project with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. He realized that the stream he’d referenced in 2005 was above the maximum Pleistocene lake level of any downstream flow-connected basins, and thus he doubts that redband trout ever made it to this elevated location.
In the late 50’s and through the 60’s ODFW had introduced Lahontan cutthroat trout and rainbow trout into this stream. During this trip he was pleased to find that all of the trout examined seemed to be of the Lahontan strain; with some trout exhibiting the appearance (phenotype) of the “extinct” Alvord cutthroat trout.
Dr. Behnke has urged the State of Oregon to create a population of trout phenotypically representative of the “extinct” alvordensis by transplanting specimens that most closely resemble alvordensis into presently fishless waters, where they can self-propagate and preserve the phenotype (if not genotype) of the Alvord cutthroat trout.
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