Cutthroat rescue eyes new waters

In the headwaters of Dutchman Creek, amid remote boulder fields and pine forest three miles east of Jefferson City, a handful of West Slope Cutthroat trout have made their home. They are small creatures, mostly about hand-sized, and striking, bearing the distinctive red-orange splash under their jaws and speckles at their tails of Montana’s state fish.

The way things are going, by the estimate of the state Fish, Wildlife & Parks Department (FWP), they’ll be gone within five years.

That’s why the state has fixed on Dutchman Creek for the next phase of its decades-long effort to preserve the West Slope Cutthroat in the Elkhorn Mountains. On Feb. 16, it released a draft environmental assessment for its plan to restore the trout in 3.5 miles of stream; it will hold a public hearing Feb. 29.