Office of the Secretary

BABBITT IN UTAH TO HELP TRIBE, PUBLIC RESTORE STATE FISH

"BRING BACK THE NATIVES" REPLENISHES NATIVE TROUT HABITAT IN BEEHIVE STATE

Economic impact to Utah: Investing $400,000 helps attract 90,000 new anglers (406,000 total) who spend $38 million more ($192 million) each year since start of Administration.

For release: May 16, 1998

Contact: Stephanie Hanna (202) 208-6416

Sharon R. Rose (303) 236-7917

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt waded into the shallows of Little Dell Creek outside Utah’s capital on Saturday afternoon to help place a low-tech, high-yield fish incubator -- what he calls “planting the seeds of hope” -- in that Wasach watershed.

But the restoration project only marks the latest partnership devoted to replenishing the rare, native, official state fish -- the Bonneville cutthroat trout -- back to its historic range and keeping it off the federal endangered species act “list.” Teaming up with ranchers, land managers, state officials, wildlife stewards, Goshute Tribal leaders and Trout Unlimited, Babbitt has taken early and active steps to help preserve and replenish the Beehive State fish without red tape.

“The Bonneville cutthroat is a mirror of Utah itself,” said Babbitt. “Its gold, red and orange hues reflect your desert. It is a hardy, industrious fish that survives harsh changes in climate and geography. It can anchor a rural economy based around fishing.But its health is in question. As stewards, we need to make tough ground level decisions that bring it back.”

Water diversions, habitat degradation, the introduction of nonnative fish have scissored the native cutthroat’s world into fragments, shrunk its range and population dramatically to a mere 147 stream miles in Utah. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is studying whether to list it as threatened. Whatever decision results, Babbitt has urged aggressive steps and hard decisions to protect and restore the native fish:

* A Memorandum of Understanding -- signed December 19, 1997 by Goshute Tribal leaders, Trout Unlimited and private ranchers with federal land managers -- coordinates recovery efforts on watersheds with overlapping ownership. For example, Goshute leaders are using the Douglass ranch ponds for brood stock to help recover Bonneville trout on their lands.

* A Conservation Agreement -- signed in 1996 by the USFWS, Utah DNR, BLM, USFS, Goshute Tribe, BOR and Utah Reclamation Mitigation and Conservation Commission -- calls for state/federal and agency planing on a watershed scale to benefit native trout.

* Planting “seeds of hope” -- to jump start a native fishery, Babbitt is working with Trout Unlimited and other partners to install low-tech incubators in streams that help more native trout adapt, survive and eventually spawn in the wild on their own. The innovative incubators are not a crutch or substitute, but complement trout habitat recovery work.

This marks the third event to highlight his national drive to “Bring Back the Natives.” It is a campaign to highlight the ecological and economic cornerstone that native trout can play in the West, and helps provide the engine to restore their populations. Babbitt has already caught endangered greenback cutthroat in Colorado and Lahontan cutthroat in Nevada (both are the official fish of each state, respectively).

Under Bring Back the Natives, Babbitt and Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman released more than $5 million in new federal and private grants for more than 44 innovative projects that will directly replenish aquatic habitat for native fish species in 14 states. Ultimately, the drive will restore habitat on 283,000 miles of streams and 6.5 million acres of lakes within 462 million acres, or 70 percent of all federal lands.

"If at first this joint campaign seems modest in cost,” said Babbitt, “just consider its on-the-ground impact: Every public nickel is matched by private dimes, every quarter is pumped directly into the local watershed, every dollar bill invested towards a self-sustaining native fishery yields a fiver for community businesses in that watershed. In this way, the Endangered Species Act fuels, guides and expands the base of rural economic growth."

Babbitt has boosted his Bureau of Reclamation into the federal-private team of the USDA Forest Service, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and private and non-profit groups like Trout Unlimited. He integrated the use of federal fish hatcheries to replenish rare native fish as a priority. And he unveiled the economic and ecological rewards of this leveraged approach, state by state.

Last year in Utah, Bring Back the Natives awarded $158,000 in grants to the Utah Division of Wildlife to improve the riparian habitats of Bitter Creek through livestock control, for reintroduction of Colorado River Cutthroat to the Book Cliffs near Vernal, UT. In 1998, TU’s National Embrace-a-Stream program awarded its Utah Countil with $23,000 for native fish habitat restoration. These cooperative investments seem small, but pay off: Since the Administration took office, such programs helped attract 90,000 new anglers (406,000 total) who now spend $192 million each year, $38 million more than in 1991.

Who: Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt and Utah partners

What: Installing “seeds of hope” low-tech fish incubator in stream

Where: Little Dell Creek at Affleck Park (E I-80 exit east canyon, 5 mil N on State 65)

When: Saturday morning, 9:45, May 16, 1997

Why: To restore Utah’s official state fish, the Bonneville cutthroat trout

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