Whitehorse Basin Cutthroat Trout

Description: The Whitehorse basin cutthroat is a minor subspecies that is closest related to the Lahontan Cutthroat. This trout is native to two small streams that flow fromt the Trout Creek Mountains in the southern Oregon desert. This cutthroat is also commonly called the Willow-Whitehorse Creek cutthroat after the two streams that it inhabits. This population once inhabited Coyote lake, but when the lake receded about 10,000 years ago due to a shift to a dryer climate, this trout became isolated in Willow and Whitehorse creek. Today these streams mostly flow through a desert region where water temperatures can reach temperatures in the 80's (Farenhiet) during the day but drop into the 50's or 60's at night. Due to its very restricted range and the extreme conditions of the area that it inhabits, this cutthroat is very susceptible to extinction. Luckily today the populations of cutthroat in the Whitehorse basin are stable, but in the past these populations where quite depressed most due to over grazing along the stream banks. This caused loss of fish because the cattle eat just about all of the vegetation in the riparian zone and cave the stream banks in thus increasing the sediment load on the stream. Today with the riparian zones of these two streams fenced to block the access for livestock the populations of these trout are stable enough to permit the streams could be opened to catch and release fishing.

Description: This cutthroat is very similar to the Humboldt Cutthroat in coloration, which is brassy or yellowish with a light pink tint along the lateral line. The Whitehorse basin cutthroat usually has less spots than the Lahontan Cutthroat. The spotting pattern on this cutthroat tends consist of fairly large spots that are sparsely distributed across the body with most of the spots concentrated about the lateral line.