Denver — State officials are defending the state-federal restoration of a rare native Colorado fish despite a study showing that some waterways have been stocked with the wrong fish.
State natural resources chief Harris Sherman says biologists are taking the results of the University of Colorado study seriously, but adds that the genetic testing used by researchers wasn’t previously available.
He says the state Division of Wildlife helped pay for the study as part of ongoing input into the recovery program.
Sherman’s comments are in a letter to four legislators who demanded an explanation for the findings that only four of nine populations of fish thought to be greenback cutthroat trout were actually the more common Colorado River cutthroat trout.
