West Creek was one of more than a dozen sites where non-native fish were poisoned and removed to make way for greenback stocking, part of a 30-year, multi-million-dollar effort to restore the fish to its native range. At the time, the trout were thought to be greenback cutthroat trout ( Oncorhynchus clarkii stomias), a critically threatened native subspecies that is also Colorado’s state fish. “If you have a hole in your waders it can be a long day.”Īs they make their way upstream, the men fill a bucket with a species of trout that Kennedy’s team had painstakingly stocked in the stream in previous years. “If you do it wrong, you get a fish fry,” Kennedy jokes. If done properly, the current will force trout in the stream to involuntarily swim closer to the current where they become stunned, giving Kennedy and his two volunteers a chance to scoop them up with nets. With each beep, the pack flashes a red light and emits a pulse of electrical current, which Kennedy guides through the water using an electrode on a pole and a live wire. He wears a sturdy gray box on his back, reminiscent of the “proton packs” from the movie Ghostbusters.

Wading in the water is Chris Kennedy, a fish biologist with the U.S. The backcountry scene is undisturbed aside from three men slowly plodding along the stream, their equipment emitting a rhythmic beeping over the sounds of the gurgling creek.

Rain from the night before has cast a perfectly formed rainbow across the sky and is feeding an invigorated flow of water over the stream’s rocks. It’s early October in northern Colorado, and aspen leaves are falling in droves onto the surface of West Creek, a small stream that flows through Rocky Mountain National Park’s southeast corner.

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