Environmental degradation is nothing new. Back around 1890 or so, someone had the bright idea of introducing rainbow, mackinaw, brown and brook trout into Lake Tahoe. That, along with outlandish commercial fish harvesting due to the Comstock boom, and intensive logging and milling activities around the Lake, doomed the native Lahontan trout population. Loggers dumped so much wood pulp into streams that, on some days, the water became too thick for fish to swim through. The further introduction of other non-native species insured that by the 1930s not one Lahontan trout could be found in all of Lake Tahoe.
The Lahontan trout is the State Fish of Nevada, and has been designated as an endangered species. This relic from the Pleistocene era played a large role in the lives of the native Piaute people. John C. Fremont dubbed the tasty pink-meated Lahontan trout the salmon trout. His short pronouncement probably guaranteed that every person between Reno and San Francisco wanted to eat one.
This ancient species of cutthroat trout survives freezing temperatures, thrives in high-alkaline waters, lives up to 20 years and can grow as heavy as 40 pounds. Put that on the end of a fishing line! But the Lahontan trout cannot reproduce without spawning upstream, so damns became a further threat to their survival.
Considering the obstacles confronting the poor Lahanton trout, it is astonishing that any survived at all. But survive they did, thanks to an unknown benefactor who planted Lahonton trout in the streams of the Pilot Peak Mountains on the Nevada-Utah border.