Tuesday September 6, 2022
Steamboat Pilot & Today —
After seven years of planning and work, partners in a restoration project for native cutthroat trout habitat in Burgess Creek along the edge of the Steamboat Ski Resort permitted area were happy to release 2,500 cutthroat trout fingerlings into the stream last week.
“It’s certainly been a pleasure of a project for me to work on,” said Rick Henderson, Routt National Forest fisheries biologist. “It’s been a great team effort.”
The genesis of the cooperative project between the U.S. Forest Service, Colorado Parks & Wildlife and nonprofit Trout Unlimited started in 2014. Henderson said the ski area was proposing construction work in the Burgess Creek lift area, so fisheries staff walked the area to see how far upstream brook trout could be found.
Officials were excited to find a one-mile stretch of Burgess Creek that was home to a genetically pure population of Colorado River subspecies cutthroat trout. The fish were restricted from moving downstream due to two culverts.