by Jerry Yesavage
(yesavage@stanford.edu )
The Golden Trout Wilderness is a "Federal Wilderness" area 80 or so miles to the southeast of Fresno, and to the west of Lone Pine, California. The area contains the home waters of the Golden Trout, the state fish. Cattle grazing, along with other activity, such as fish stocking, were "grandfathered" into the legislation that created the Wilderness.
This area has a Plan for cattle grazing that has undergone review by the United States Forest Service (USFS). The result of this review has been presentation of an Environmental Assessment with five proposed alternatives: Alternatives and Plan.
An interesting aspect of the plan from III page 18 is the Recovery Rate of Fish Habitat. I have redited the page to make the Recovery Rate understanable in terms of years to recovery rather than summary scores.
This is an unofficial site, though I am a Governor of CalTrout, I am just putting up some material to share with others interested in the topic so we can discuss.
PS (3/01) The USFS chose Alernative A- No Grazing. This is known as a major victory for fish. Thanks to all that chose to support this decision.
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The fish in Question
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The Area Overview Thanks to DFG from Cottonwood Lakes Trailhead (Also Detailed Topo)
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Templeton Meadow showing a Century of Hard Use
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Stream Damage
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Some Bank Damage
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Attempt to fix Gulley
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Northeast Ramshaw Meadow (In good shape)
I checked this page on 8/9/10. The report is that these meadows have improved substantial thanks to a lot of efforts by a lot of people too numerous to mention.
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