Hanging by a thread? A study offers new insights on the greenback cutthroat trout. Image: Fish and Wildlife Service

From the Green Blog in the New York Times, a story about this beautiful creature:

The rare greenback cutthroat trout, Colorado’s state fish, is even more imperiled than scientists thought, a new study suggests. By analyzing DNA sampled from cutthroat trout specimens pickled in ethanol for 150 years, comparing it with the genes of today’s cutthroat populations, and cross-referencing more than 40,000 historic stocking records, researchers in Colorado and Australia have revealed that the fish survives not in five wild populations, but just one.

Hight resolution image of the same.  Then there is the story from five years ago in Wired that might explain how we got to this perilous point (or at least how tough this work can be to get right):

For twenty years, biologists have worked to restore the endangered greenback cutthroat trout to its native Colorado rivers. Sadly, many of their efforts were wasted; they were stocking the wrong fish.