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Article: Invaders at the gate.(survival of the Little Kern golden trout)
- Article from:
- Animals
- Article date:
- September 1, 1997
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1997 Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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With a little help, a native fish survives.
The Little Kern golden trout has never wandered far from its mountain habitat, 5,000 to 9,000 feet high in the western Sierra Nevada mountains of Tulare County, California. Nor has its special habitat, tucked in the protective embrace of Sequoia National Park and a separate designated wilderness area, ever been visibly disrupted. Yet by the 1970s, the trout had vanished from all but a tiny segment of its river, surviving only above a waterfall separating it from the lower reaches of the Kern River's western branch, known as the Little Kern.
The trout was succumbing not to habitat loss but to what has been ...