The Crooked Creek Project

Within the sphere of the core group of champions there were several trout conservation projects that they were aware of and felt were worthy of consideration for helping. After several months of research and deliberation they settled on an exiting project in Montana. Due to a 5000-acre fire in the Pryor Mountains of Montana and subsequent, catastrophic 2-½ inch rainfall, an entire section of a mountain drainage called Crooked Creek was literally scoured out.

This fire and rainstorm in the summer of 2002, diverted water around a cliff-like natural rock barrier that for centuries had protected the fish above it and left this uppermost, remnant population of genetically unaltered Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout exposed to the real threat of being lost forever. The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management have collaborated on a plan to protect these imperiled trout by installing a concrete fish barrier to replace the natural one. The Forest Service biologist`s population estimate for these threatened Cutthroats is from 400-500 fish.