The Yellowstone cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus virginalis bouvieri) is a subspecies of Rocky Mountain cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus virginalis).Page, Lawrence M.; Bemis, Katherine E.; Espinosa-Pérez, Héctor S.; Findley, Lloyd T.; Gilbert, Carter R.; Hartel, Karsten E.; Lea, Robert N.; Mandrak, Nicholas E.; Neighbors, Margaret A. (2023). Common and scientific names of fishes from the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Special publication (Eighth ed.). Bethesda: American Fisheries Society. .Campbell, Matthew R.; Keeley; Kozfkay; Loxterman; Evans (2018), Trotter; Bisson; Schultz, Shiozawa; Roper (eds.), "Describing and Preserving the Diversity of Cutthroat Trout in the Yellowstone River, Snake River, and Bonneville Basin", Cutthroat Trout: Evolutionary Biology and Taxonomy, American Fisheries Society, doi:10.47886/9781934874509.ch12, , retrieved 2024-08-12Trotter, P., P. Bisson, B. Roper, L. Schultz, C. Ferraris, G.R. Smith and R.F. Stearley. 2018. A special workshop on the taxonomy and evolutionary biology of cutthroat trout. Pages 1–31 in Trotter P, Bisson P, Schultz L, Roper B (editors). Cutthroat Trout: Evolutionary Biology and Taxonomy. Special Publication 36, American Fisheries Society, Bethesda, Maryland.Love Stowell; Metcalf; Markle; Stearly (2018), Trotter; Bisson; Shultz; Roper (eds.), "Species Conceptualization and Delimitation: A Framework for the Taxonomic Revision of Cutthroat Trout", Cutthroat Trout: Evolutionary Biology and Taxonomy, American Fisheries Society, doi:10.47886/9781934874509.ch2, , retrieved 2024-08-13 It is a freshwater fish in the salmon family (family Salmonidae). Native only to a few U.S. states, their original range was upstream of Shoshone Falls on the Snake River and tributaries in Wyoming, also across the Continental Divide in Yellowstone Lake and in the Yellowstone River as well as its tributaries downstream to the Tongue River in Montana. The species is also found in Idaho, Utah and Nevada.
It is believed that it got into Yellowstone River (which drains into Atlantic) from Snake River (which drains into Pacific) drainages through a small creek known as Parting of the Waters. It is one of the few aquatic species that has crossed a continental divide.
Population threats Their range has been reduced by overfishing and habitat destruction due to mining, grazing, and logging, and population densities have been reduced by competition with non-native brook, brown, and rainbow trout since these were introduced in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. However, the most serious current threats to the subspecies are interbreeding with introduced rainbow trout (resulting in cutbows) in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem, the presence of lake trout in Yellowstone and Heart lakes in Yellowstone National Park which prey upon cutthroat trout to 15 inches in length, and several outbreaks of whirling disease in major spawning tributaries.
Although lake trout were established in Shoshone and Lewis lakes in the Snake River drainage from U.S. government stocking operations in 1890, they were never officially introduced into the Yellowstone River drainage and their presence there is probably the result of accidental or illegal introductions.
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References
Further reading
External links Wyoming Fish & Game Commission website