Natives and locals, fish and fishermen . . .

"They move here, and don't know anything. They crowd my rivers, they make fools of themselves in my woods come hunting season. I wish they'd just stay wherever the hell it was they grew up and be stupid there!"
This particular native may have been young, but she had in many ways earned her opinions. She was blessed with a father who was both a fly fisherman and a hunter, a man who taught his daughter to fish and hunt well and ethically, and she'd been doing both since she was knee high to a marmot.
 "Hell, I came here from somewhere else. So did your dad," I said.
"Yes, I guess that is right." In addition to casting well, shooting like Annie Oakley and riding a horse like she was born with a saddle glued to her behind, this daughter of the West also sported flawless grammar and perfect diction. Her dad had a lot of reasons to be proud.
"Would you have me return to the dark and ugly streets of some eastern city?"
"You know, I didn't mean you . . ."
"Or your dad? Besides, how old are you, young native?" It was a rhetorical question. I knew how old she was.
"Eighteen."
"Well, I may not have been born here, but I've lived here more than half my life, not too much of a stretch to say twice as long as you, and I've got some opinions of my own. One of them is if you've lived somewhere more than half your life, put down deep and lasting roots, raised a child there, had a wife die there - you're a local, maybe not a native, but a local, and you shouldn't have to talk about this stuff or justify your presence to anyone." The subject never came up again.
Yes, I have lived here more than half my now more than six decades. And I figure this is the place, these are the mountains, where I've felt the tug of way more than half the trout I've ever fooled with a fly and then danced with for a little while. Long enough to know that native is not a word the locals throw around loosely. Not in terms of people. Not in terms of trout.
Here, in the headwaters of the Colorado, that means Colorado River cutthroat trout.
If I had any sense, I wouldn't touch what's coming with an 8-foot split-cane pole - yours or mine - it's too controversial. But I've been accused of not having any sense more than once and the possibility doesn't frighten me.
In a select few of our headwaters streams, the Division of Wildlife is reintroducing native cutthroat. To do this, they have to eliminate introduced species. Streams some of us have been fishing for decades will be drastically changed. Places where some healthy, self-sustaining populations of the char once common in the east (now, all too rare in its native range), the brook trout, and the true trout native to far-western waters, the rainbow trout - beautiful fish that provided some wonderful experiences for me and a lot of my buddies - will be eliminated. In their place, we will see new populations of likely smaller fish.
No question about it, there is a powerful sense of loss in this.
But there is gain, as well. Populations that preserve the history of this place (no less than my young friend who was born here, who grew up hunting and fishing here, who loves this place and understands it as few who were transplanted ever will) will once again swim in the waters their ancestors claimed as their own.
Why not just plant some natives and let them co-exist with the non-natives, an arrangement humans somehow manage with only a little friction? Because our native trout almost invariably hybridize with introduced trout and eventually disappear in the streams where introduced species live. And when they live with species that do not hybridize, they are usually stressed into oblivion by competing non-natives.
There are a few high-country streams with truly native trout populations; mostly, in remote headwaters into which trout were never stocked. I won't ever say where. If your legs and a pack take you to them, keep them to yourself, and treasure your discovery. There are not nearly enough of them. Certainly not enough to satisfy my desire to rub shoulders with them regularly, and possibly not enough to guarantee the natives' continued existence. Natives may not need our help, but that's not a chance I would want to take.
As for those introduced species . . . are they locals yet?
Introduced species appeared here over a century ago. Biologists seem to agree that major salmonid speciation occurred in post-glacial periods of geographic isolation. That's evolutionary jargon that in town-talk translates into: native trout were established tens of thousands of years ago. If the eastern brookies and western rainbows want people to consider them locals, by my definition, they'll be entitled to the label change one day, but not real soon.