SALIDA – Colorado Parks and Wildlife says a team of volunteers went beyond the fire safe zone on Wednesday to save an endangered type of fish.
Volunteers with CPW and the U.S. Forest service’s rescued Colorado's state fish, the greenback cutthroat trout, from the lower prong of Hayden Creek and moved them to an isolation chamber at a fish hatchery.
The estimated population of the unique fish is only about 2,000.
Biologists were concerned that the cutthroat trout would not survive the aftermath of the Hayden Creek Fire.
Ash and sediment from the fire could wash down into the lower prong of the Creek, cutting off food supply and oxygen for the trout.
According to CPW, this green cutthroat is similar to a cutthroat trout found in the Smithsonian Museum said to have been taken from Twin Lakes near Leadville in 1889.
Forest Service public information and CPW staff captured video of the rescue operation.
