California and the West : Sierra Trout Killed in Bid to Save Frogs : Wildlife: Anglers decry action at two lakes. Officials reply that frogs dominated the area before fish were introduced and say there is plenty of fishing elsewhere.

In the shadow of some of California’s highest peaks, beside a shimmering turquoise lake, a state fisheries biologist kneels over another handful of dead trout.

Today he helped haul in 70. This summer, at least 3,000 fish have been killed and buried. Now he is talking about plans to kill even more. “We are trying to levy a one-two punch against these guys,” said Curtis Milliron, weighing and measuring the small fish beside him. “First, we’ll net as many as we can. Then we’re going after their spawning grounds.”

If he is lucky and resourceful, Milliron will wipe out all the trout in two back country lakes above this Owens Valley hamlet by the end of next year.

Such plans once would have been unthinkable in the Sierra Nevada, a temple for anglers and outdoors lovers dating back generations. But Milliron and his assistants are in the vanguard of a new generation of wildlife and forestry officials who are rethinking the more than century-old practice of planting trout in virtually every river, stream and lake in the High Sierra.

The reason for removing the revered rainbows and browns from these waters?

To clear the way for the creature that dominated here for thousands of years before settlers brought trout: the mountain yellow-legged frog.

The 3-inch-long amphibian’s grip in the California mountains has been slipping as trout have become ever more dominant. Although the frog has not yet received federal endangered species protection, or even been listed as threatened, state officials say that status is likely if trout are not cleared from at least a few locales.

“There are hundreds of other lakes in the Sierra that will still have trout,” said Milliron, 43, a 15-year veteran with the Department of Fish and Game. “It’s our responsibility to give these frogs that are native to this area a quality habitat where they can thrive.”

But some fishermen, back country guides and old-timers see the trout kill as just another restriction on their range. Prevented from building fires in the high country, forbidden to hunt mountain lions even as the deer population declines, limited in their access to some trails, they say the fish kill is another infringement on the freedoms that California’s majestic mountains used to represent.

“I can’t cut wood. I can’t mine. I can’t hunt where I want. I can’t do anything anymore,” said Duane Rossi, a restaurant owner in Big Pine. “What about me? I am an animal species too.

“Why take these two beautiful, beautiful lakes,” which have provided countless hours of enjoyment, said Rossi, 60, whose family came to the Owens Valley more than 100 years ago.

Rossi’s ancestors were probably among early settlers in the 1870s who helped spread trout through Sierra lakes and streams that were considered barren--lacking any game fish.

Miners brought trout in pails. Ranchers hauled them in milk buckets. After World War II, the state got involved in earnest.

Tanker trucks now disgorge rainbows, browns and their cousins into seemingly every lake and stream in the Sierra Nevada. The Department of Fish and Game releases 1.5 million catchable fish a year in the Eastern Sierra counties of Inyo and Mono.

Even in the remote back country, twin-engine turboprop planes sweep overhead and send thousands of tiny fingerlings fluttering down to the cold waters, like so many shimmering leaves.

When the yellow-legged frog was considered at all in these areas, it usually was as another food source for the trout.

But in recent years biologists began to notice that the once ubiquitous frogs were disappearing from large sections of California. They have virtually vanished in Southern California. A survey in the Sierra found yellow-legged frogs in less than 3% of 1,200 bodies of water, compared with an estimated 50% a century ago.

Although pesticides and environmental factors are suspected causes of some losses, biologists said the frogs’ absence is most pronounced in waters where trout thrive. Ungainly frog tadpoles are no match for the quick and predatory fish.

Milliron, the associate Fish and Game biologist, said the lakes above Big Pine present an opportunity for restoring a safe habitat for the frogs, whose bellies and legs range from a pale lemon color to an intense sun yellow.

Sixth Lake and Seventh Lake sit in their own high basin above Big Pine, within view of Palisade Glacier, the largest glacier in the Sierra. Frogs still survive in a creek and pond on the brink of the two lakes--theoretically poised to retake the lakes once they are trout-free.

Milliron says that the two lakes--a strenuous half-day hike from Big Pine Canyon Road--will be no great loss to fishermen. He said both lakes are lightly used by fisherman and that brook trout in the 11,160-foot-high Seventh Lake have become so stunted by decades of over-breeding and limited food supply that they are no longer a desirable game fish.

Indeed, many of the fish pulled from the lake have oversize heads and scrawny bodies. Well into their lives, many barely reach seven inches in length.

“To say we are losing some jewel here is just not correct,” Milliron said. “Seventh Lake has been a crummy fishery.”

A UCLA-trained biologist who has assisted in the project said that many fisheries experts will not support any program that kills fish.

“To some of them, every single fish you put in is a good fish and this is wrong,” said the biologist, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of being ostracized. “It takes some courage to even try something new like this.”

Milliron hopes the Department of Fish and Game can soften anglers’ opposition by expanding trout planting at two lakes within a short hike of Sixth and Seventh lakes. Under the proposal, one-pound golden trout would be planted in Summit Lake. A hardy hybrid known as tiger trout would be planted at nearby Black Lake. Plans for the new trout plants, however, must still obtain approval from Fish and Game administrators in Sacramento.

Murton “Murt” Stewart III said he has heard these sorts of plans before and that inevitably the result is more limited access to public lands.

The 50-year-old Big Pine man and his family have made their living for more than 35 years packing campers, climbers and fishermen into the back country by horse and mule.

“This is a day-use area that is heavily used,” said Stewart, a wrangler with the look of the Marlboro man, a part he once auditioned for. “There are hundreds of other lakes up here that are much more remote. If they want to play these games, why can’t they use one of those?”

Like Rossi, Stewart said Sixth Lake offers some of the best fishing in the Big Pine basin and that Fish and Game officials are not aware of the lake’s popularity because they surveyed only hikers, not those who arrive on horseback.

The old-timers complain that although Milliron and colleagues have been planning the frog restoration for several years, it was only announced, as a done deal, in the last year.

“It’s cutting into the public’s use and enjoyment of these lakes and not including the public in any of the decisions,” said Stewart, who has refused to haul the nets and other Fish and Game agency gear into the mountains.

The argument may become moot, however, if Milliron and company cannot eliminate the trout from the two lakes.

Milliron said he wants to remove the trout from Sixth and Seventh lakes using only nets and nontoxic means. Chemicals might be justified if the yellow-legged frog were in imminent danger of extinction, he said. But the fish can probably be eliminated with less controversial methods, he said.

Indeed, a Department of Fish and Game attempt to poison northern pike out of Lake Davis in the Sierra in 1997 cost $14 million, outraged local residents and eventually failed when the razor-toothed predator reappeared this year.

Fish and Game officials concede the attempt to eliminate trout in Sixth and Seventh lakes may be more environmentally correct, but it also may not work. Although trout are not native to the waters, they have proved to be especially good at procreation.

Milliron and three aides spent most of the summer painstakingly laying sheer green netting across the lakes, using inflatable “float tubes” to paddle the traps into place. When the nets were hauled in, the fish were cataloged before being buried or sunk back into the water, in weighted sacks.

On a recent blustery afternoon, Milliron bundled himself into a diver’s dry suit and plunged into frigid Sixth Lake. A colleague cut small squares of plastic mesh and Milliron repeatedly dived up to 10 feet to the bottom, pinning the synthetic covering over gravel beds where trout normally would burrow and lay their eggs.

“It’s a lot of work, but it’s the only way to do it,” the ponytailed Milliron said as he gasped between dives.

Fish and Game officials concede that their work is experimental--the survival of even one breeding pair of trout could quickly refill the lake with fish and doom the frog restoration.

But if the difficult process succeeds, the agency says, it could be used elsewhere, not only to benefit yellow-legged frogs, but to eliminate poor trout strains in favor of more robust ones.

Exactly where the frog repopulation policy might lead remains unclear, although preliminary plans hint that it may not end at Sixth and Seventh lakes.

A 1997 draft management plan for four Sierra wilderness areas proposed a halt to fish stocking at 70 back country lakes, with the goal of restoring mountain yellow-legged frog habitat. The plan was written not by the Department of Fish and Game, but by the U.S. Forest Service. Final recommendations will not be known until the plan is given approval by National Forest supervisors, probably sometime in 2001.

In addition, Fish and Game intends to issue plans for managing fish and native species in 20 other drainage basins in the Eastern Sierra. The reports could revamp trout planting in the back country and identify other waters for yellow-legged frog restoration.

Milliron sees the plans as an opportunity to “improve management of both fisheries and the native fauna like yellow-legged frogs.”

But he is bound to run into other Duane Rossis, people who will see things quite differently.

Rossi, wearing a white cowboy hat and apron in the dining room of his steakhouse, pines for the days when the Sierra was a freewheeling place for work and play.

“The way I see it,” Rossi drawls, “the yellow-legged frog will be this area’s version of the spotted owl. There will be land grabs by the government and other problems. It’s just a dang, cryin’ shame.”

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Mountain Yellow-Legged Frog

Scientific name: Rana muscosa

Length: 2 to 3 inches

Habitat: Lakes, rivers and streams at moderate to high elevations

Color: Highly variable on top; belly and underlegs vary from lemon to darker yellow

Food: Beetles, flies, ants, bees and wasps

Predators: Trout, coyotes, birds, garter snakes

Range: The main populations range from Plumas County in the north to Tulare County in the south, and east into the Lake Tahoe region. Fewer than 100 frogs are estimated to survive in Southern California in the San Gabriel and San Jacinto mountains.