WCT Multi-state Assessment February 10, 2003 



history strategies, adaptation to specific environmental or habitat conditions, and geographic 

 location (Anon 2000; AUendorf et al. 2001). 



Table 3. Criteria used for designating each conservation population. 



Code Description 



1 Core Conservation Population (must be genetically unaltered - greater than 99% pure) 



2 Known or Probable Unique Life History (fluvial, ad-fluvial, or resident) 



3 Known or Probable Ecological Adaptation to extreme environmental condition 



4 Known or Probable Predisposition for large size or unique coloration 



5 Other - Population occupies habitat that is likely to become part of the WCT conservation 

 focus ^ 



Almost all stream segments occupied by WCT where genetic testing found no evidence of 

 introgression were classified as "conservation populations'". A few isolated stream segments 

 where WCT were genetically tested and there was no evidence of introgression were not classed 

 as conservation populations. These populations occupied very little habitat and it was not 

 deemed cost-effective to invest in expanding them because expanding these populations was 

 infeasible given current restoration techniques. Some of these populations might be replicated 

 by moving either fish or gametes in the future, but this restoration activity was speculative at this 

 time. 



All conservation populations were classified as either "isolates" or "metapopulations" depending 

 upon their isolation or connectivity and likely genetic exchange between stream segments. We 

 attempted to identify conservation populations as either a "source" or a "sink", but because many 

 of the conservation populations may have had some stream segments classed as "source" 

 populations and other stream segments classified as "sink" populations, application of these 

 terms was not consistently applied across all conservation populations. Therefore, we excluded 

 this attribute from the analysis. 



We summarized information for designated conservation populations based on length of stream 

 occupied, number of populations, and geographic distribution. Since there was a very wide 

 range of lengths of habitats occupied by the various conservation populations we chose to 

 present these data both in terms of length occupied and number of populations. 



Risk Classification 



The risks identified in this assessment are potential risks that could occur in the "foreseeable 

 future" which we considered to be two to three decades (based on an informal survey of our 

 westslope cutthroat interagency conservation team). Risks were stratified into three major 

 categories: genetic, disease, and population-level. 



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