Coastal Cutthroat Trout Symposium: Research, Status, and Conservation

Coastal cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii clarkii) express diverse life history variation, perhaps more than any of the Pacific salmonids. As such, biologists face many challenges in managing and conserving their populations. In addition, many efforts that focus on Pacific salmon exclude coastal cutthroat trout, so a symposium focusing on the sub-species is much needed. Our symposium will share new research and conservation actions that focus on coastal cutthroat trout. This symposium will be of interest to scientists and managers who work within the extensive distributional range of coastal cutthroat trout (approximately 1,500 coastal miles), as well as researchers who wish to learn more about sampling in estuaries and probability sampling at the landscape scale. It will also be of interest to those who work with small populations, and practitioners of on-the-ground conservation who are interested in conserving biological variation within species. Scheduled talks include coastal cutthroat trout migration patterns in freshwater and estuary habitats, distribution and occupancy of freshwater habitat, and special issues facing coastal cutthroat trout, such as small population size, island populations, and natural hybridization. We will also present working examples of projects under a conservation initiative for coastal cutthroat trout that was started in 2006, including the challenges to develop conservation actions given the wide range of variation and unique biology of coastal cutthroat trout. At the end of the symposium we will host a panel discussion. The panel will be challenged to integrate the new information presented at the symposium with known data gaps. The panel will be asked to identify and discuss the pressing information needs to better manage and conserve coastal cutthroat trout.