The Great Basin occupies about 200,000 square miles of the northern portion of the Basin and Range province in the western United States. The Basin and Range province is a section of the earth’s crust and mantle that have stretched more than twice their original size, thereby thinning the crust and cracking it into many faults. These faults created uplifted mountains and down-dropped valleys, mostly running north to south. These alternating valleys (basins) and mountains (ranges) give this province its distinctive look and name: Basin and Range.

In North America, water on the land typically seeks the Pacific, Atlantic or Arctic oceans. The Great Basin is usually designated by its hydrology: water within the Great Basin does not enter one of these oceans, but rather it stays within the Basin until it either percolates or evaporates.

From the Miocene to Pleistocene Epoch (from about 24 million years BP to about 1.2 million BP), the land under the present basin was a shallow sea and then the beginnings of mountains formed. Early Salmonids seem to have evolved during this time and would have swam the waters covering the present Great Basin.

By the Pleistocene Epoch (from about 1.2 million BP to about 12,000 BP), the basin was formed and relatively dried out from its earlier inundation of sea. However, the climate was such that the basin filled with considerably more water than at present. Two of the largest lakes that formed were Bonneville (in the present day Utah area) and Lahontan (in present day Nevada).

It was during these two epochs that salmonids seem to have established their territory and thus begins the kernel of the mystery that instigated this desert trip. Bordering the Lahontan Basin to the northwest was Alvord Lake, much smaller than Bonneville and Lahontan, but the area we are concerned with, because it is within this basin that the “extinct” Alvord cutthroat once lived.

How the Alvord cutthroat got into the Alvord Basin isn’t exactly clear, but Patrick Trotter (Cutthroat: Native Trout of the West, 2008) presents three possible routes: 1) a gully running east of Alvord Basin toward the Owyhee River connecting to the Snake River, 2) Sand Gap on the eastern edge of Alvord Basin connecting to Coyote Basin which also would have drained into the Owyhee or 3) About 30 miles south of the present day Oregon/Nevada border is Summit Lake contained within its own basin. At one time a larger lake, Lake Parman, filled this basin and occasionally overflowed because of a landslide blocking and redirecting flow from the Alvord Basin to the Lahontan Basin. Option 3 is Dr. Robert Behnke’s preferred event.

Whatever the geologic events, somehow the Alvord Basin hosted cutthroat (Dr. Behnke has determined that these cutthroat are most nearly related to the western Lahontan cutthroat). The basin was then cut off from other basins. Within Alvord Basin the cutthroat continued to evolve.

In 1934 a scientist, Dr. Carl Hubbs, began collecting samples in the Alvord Basin. Trout Creek, Oregon and Virgin Creek and Thousand Creek, Nevada within the basin were sampled. Within all three creeks a different strain of cutthroat (the Alvord) was found hybridized with introduced rainbow trout. However, a rockslide in Virgin Creek separated a pure strain of Alvord cutthroat in the upper creek.

In 1942 some rainbow were stocked in Alkali Reservoir by a rancher. The reservoir overflowed into the upper Virgin Creek. By 1953 mostly rainbow were found in the upper Virgin Creek. In 1984 some biologists found several fish that appeared to be cutthroat. In 1985 two biologists arrived at Virgin Creek, caught three large cutthroat (15″, 18″ and 20″). They sent these fish to Dr. Behnke who determined they were nearly genetically pure Alvord cutthroat.

In 1986 26 of the purest looking fish were captured and planted in Jackson Creek, Nevada, a fishless creek. A later genetic analysis showed that about half the fish had large amounts of rainbow trout genes. In 1987 these trout disappeared, and it didn’t appear as if they spawned before disappearing.

In 2005 Dr. Behnke explained in a Trout magazine article that an old research paper mentioned that fish within the Catlow Basin of southeastern Oregon were introduced species. One of those creeks, Guano Creek, had been stocked with Lahontan cutthroat and rainbow. In 2006 Dr. Behnke found some cutthroat trout that had the appearance of Alvord cutthroats.

In the 2007 publication, About Trout: The Best of Robert J. Behnke from Trout Magazine, in the update to his 1986 article concerning Alvord cutthroat, he said:

Although it is unlikely that the present population in Guano Creek represnt a pure line of Alvord cutthroat, some specimens accurately duplicate the external appearance of the original Alvord. These could be selected and transplanted into a fishless stream and the Alvord phenotype, if not genotype, could be resurrected.

The Alvord cutthroat’s official designation is: Extinct.

In August 2008, a gutsy native trout locator, Gary Marston (of Gig Harbor, Washington), made a trek to Guano Creek hoping to find the Alvord cutthroat. He describes his experience here. My fishing buddy Dan and I thought we would like to see this “extinct” cutthroat trout. Our 2009  Fishing for Desert Natives trip was anchored to that hope.

General information about cutthroat trout is found on my “About Cutthroat Trout” page.

Much information was gleaned from Patrick Trotter’s Cutthroat: Native Trout of the West (2008). Any misinformation within the history or science can easily be fixed if you let me know where I’m wrong.

[go to Day 1]

 Email This Post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment