As we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the Clark family comes to mind. A father and several sons were great patriots and served the American cause. During the American Revolution, they endured Valley Forge, survived Brandywine, led arduous forays into frontier Ohio, helped craft the Ft. Gower Resolves, and took Vincennes, Indiana from the British. The youngest Clark led the Corps of Discovery through the newly acquired Louisiana Territory.
Their names through their exploits are part of our nation’s autobiography: Clarksville, Clarkston, Clarkia, Clark County, Clark Fork, and Salmo clarkii.
The last one probably tripped you up. It’s not a place, but it is part of the American story. It’s the scientific name of the cutthroat trout, so named for the carmine akin to a rose that adorns the jawline and sometimes the whole belly of the fish ripe for spawning.
Jefferson sent William Clark to co-captain the Corps alongside Merriwether Lewis. Clark was well-suited to lead the Corps’ advance up the Missouri River and over the Rockies on a fact-finding mission.
That mission included documenting the territory’s natural resources. On June 25, 1805, along the banks of the Missouri below Great Falls, Clark wrote, “we Catch great quantities of Trout.” His words sound more like an elated angler than a curious scientist. Lewis compared the new cutthroat to brook trout in his natal Virginia streams.
Thirty years later the trout was given the formal scientific name, Salmo clarkii to commemorate the Corps and its co-captain.
Scientists have since come to recognize thirteen subspecies of cutthroat trout, each with their own unique name, ranging from Alaska down to New Mexico.
A Spanish soldier was the first to write about trout in the New World. Coronado’s Entrada documented truchas swimming in a creek near Santa Fe during their epic journey through the American Southwest in 1541. The Rio Grande cutthroat trout persists in creeks purling down the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
Cutthroat trout live in pretty places—high mountain creeks, ancient lakes, along riparian ribbons in the desert, and some larger arterial waters of the Mountain West. They are an important part of nature and they have their following: cutthroat trout enthusiasts travel great distances by plane and automobile to wear off boot tread and catch these beautiful fish.
Cutthroat trout transcend natural history and American history; their inherent beauty brings to mind Emerson’s Rhodora: “If eyes were made for seeing, then beauty is its own excuse for being.”
American exceptionalism is bound up in the name clarkii via intrepid explorers on forays into the unknown as well as the modern-day highly trained scientists employed in state fish and wildlife agencies charged with conserving cutthroat trout within the bounds of their respective states. They have in their favor ardent anglers who care deeply about a fish that is an inherent part of the American West, indeed, the American story.
Biologists also have in their favor reliable and steady funding through the Dingell-Johnson Act (aka Sport Fish Restoration Act). The law requires fishing tackle makers and importers to pay a federal excise tax that funds state agencies’ fisheries research, management, and public angler access sites.
From Coronado to Clark—and the well-trained men and women who work for the state fish and wildlife agencies who strive to conserve these beautiful trout—they earned and deserve our respect.
Alan Stewart is the Director of Hillsdale College’s Nimrod Education Center. To learn more about Nimrod and conservation, visit nimrod.hillsdale.edu.
* Lead image courtesy Willow Springer.
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