Government agencies to poison Alpine County creek

An Alpine County creek is going to be chemically treated later this month to help establish the native Paiute cutthroat trout.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S Forest Service, and California Department of Fish and Wildlife plan to use rotenone, a fish toxicant, in 11 miles of Silver King Creek and its tributaries from Llewellyn Falls downstream to Silver King Canyon. The lower reaches of Tamarack Creek, Tamarack Lake Creek and Coyote Valley Creek will also be treated.

Later the agencies will restock Silver King Creek with native Paiute cutthroat trout. This is the only place in the world where this fish lives.

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife website, the Paiute was listed as endangered on March 11, 1967, and reclassified as threatened on July 16, 1975.

The problem is the state stocked the remote wilderness area creek with nonnative fish for nearly 90 years starting in the early 1900s. Those fish are the same ones the DFWS now seeks to kill.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report