Mary Lou White sees hundreds of river systems in a year, but she was surprised to find coastal cutthroat living in less than two inches of water in a ditch in the Garrison Bay watershed on San Juan Island.

These fish are known for living in extreme circumstance; juvenile cutthroats can live in small pools for up to four months after a stream bed has mostly dried up. Despite their durability, White, a biologist for the Wild Fish Conservancy, fears for the cutthroat’s future.

“It’s pretty amazing,” she said.  “But this fish can only adapt to so much.”

Russel Barsh, director of Kwiaht, the Lopez-based Center for the Historical Ecology of the Salish Sea, estimates the Cascade Creek population on Orcas at 100 to 500 adult fish, the Garrison Bay watershed population at 50 to 100, and several other locations including West Beach, Bayhead, and Doe Bay with fewer than 50 fish.

This species is unique not just because of its small population, but because it is only found in the coastal watersheds between southeast Alaska and northern California.

There is little data about past cutthroat populations, but one indication of lower fish numbers is the decline of fly fishing. The cutthroat is known as a favorite among fisherman because they are an aggressive fish, guaranteed to bite most flies.

“In the 60s and 70s fly fishing was still good on the islands,” said Barsh. “If you look at historical records, the 60s and 70s was a move from agricultural to residential county that correlates to the disappearance of fresh water fishing.”

What is a cutthroat?

Some experts call cutthroat a “trouty salmon,” while others see it as a trout with salmon characteristics.

The difference between the two is that salmon are born in fresh water, then go out to sea and often return to the same stream to spawn and, soon after, die. Trout spend their whole lives in fresh water and live long after spawning.

In the San Juan Islands, some cutthroat go out to sea, while others live only in fresh water.

“Nobody knows what triggers the cutthroat out to sea,” said Jamie Glasgow, director of the Wild Fish Conservancy. “It could be the quality or quantity of the freshwater. It could be more complicated than that, we just don’t know.”

While there is some debate on its name, one thing experts can agree on is that further research on cutthroats in the San Juan Islands is needed to determine the fish’s future.

A conservation plan

San Juan County is developing a plan for all the salmon, with an emphasis on chinook, but Barbara Rosenkotter said the county is still identifying what fish are in which streams.

“What’s really important is diversity of the species,” said Rosenkotter, San Juan County’s coordinator for salmon recovery.

The county’s goal, is to not to constrain landowners or enforce laws, but to show them how to protect the species on their land. For example, if someone has a stream on their property they can keep the natural vegetation as a buffer zone, which helps promote other native species.

“At this moment there is no specific ordinance for cutthroat,” Rosenkotter said about San Juan’s upcoming Critical Area Ordinance update. “The update will be protecting certain wetlands, buffer zones included, which are accessible to cutthroat and other salmon.”

White has been working at San Juan Island’s Garrison Bay watershed for almost four years. She has been creating plans to increase water flows with bends in the channels, help a small lake on the property drain slower and create woody debris areas for fish to hide. She also studies what type of vegetation should be in the watershed, and what non-native fish should be removed.

White researched historical documents to find out what the watershed used to look like. She found that in the 1800s the valley was bulldozed to make room for farm land, at least seven ponds were created and that at one time there was even a population of beaver.

White said since those developments, the watershed, which drains from a forested wetland to an agricultural valley used primarily for livestock, hasn’t changed over the last 100 years.

Although the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has no plan to list cutthroat as threatened or endangered, it intends to develop a coastal cutthroat conservation plan.

“Hopefully we can come up with a plan to prevent listing the fish as endangered species,” said Marci Koski, a supervisory fish biologist for recovery assessment and planning.

The plan will focus on recovery and risk assessment by asking land owners about cutthroat populations on their property.

“Cutthroat are really interesting because they occur in so many different environments,” said Koski. “All these different environments have different threats, from-over fishing to habitat degradation.”

For Barsh, who has collected over 100 hours of film of cutthroats on the islands in the last six years, there is one real threat — humans.

“The bottom line is that there are at least two genetically distinct, isolated cutthroat stocks in the islands,” said Barsh. “Although both are imminently threatened with extinction due chiefly to human factors: modifications of stream courses, water withdrawals and impoundments, introduction of non-native fish species.”

The Wild Fish Conservancy currently needs funding for more research, to track not only cutthroat, but other species vital to the same habitat. Jamie Glasgow says the decline of cutthroat could indicate the potential decline of other fish like chinook salmon, which are a large part of the resident orca population’s diet.

Glasgow has been mapping streams and fish habitats and collecting data on the San Juan Islands since 2004.

Over the years he has discovered what he calls “logical” and “illogical” ways at looking at the cutthroat. The logical reasons are easy to define —diversity of the species, preserving a natural ecosystem, and recreational fishing.

The reasons he is particularly drawn to the cutthroat are more difficult for him to explain.

“These are beautiful, charismatic animals that would be a tragedy to lose,” said Glasgow. “Just like it’d be a tragedy to lose the Sistine Chapel, even though it is hard to define the actual value of the chapel to society because we don’t eat it, it doesn’t protect us, we could build a replica at Disneyland, et cetera.”

For Glasgow, however you look at the cutthroat, the best way to deal with a mysterious fish is with precautionary steps.

“If you’re not sure, you better be careful,” Glasgow said. “If we don’t have answers, we need to get answers.”