State fish won’t receive federal protection
By Louis Sahagun, Los Angeles Times
The California golden trout — the official state fish — will not receive protection under the Endangered Species Act after a 10-year review of scientific information and conservation programs, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Friday.
“Conservation measures throughout the trout’s historic range have done much to protect the species,” service spokeswoman Sarah Swenty said in a statement. “In large part because of those measures, the service determined that the intensity of threats does not indicate the species is endangered, or likely to become so in the foreseeable future.”
Trout Unlimited filed a petition in 2001 asking the government to list the golden trout, which grows to less than a foot long and is often reddish gold with brilliant orange highlights and blue-gray spots on its belly and fins. Genetically pure strains of California golden trout can be found in just 15 miles of Sierra Nevada high-country streams.