No, bud, you didn’t catch a greenback. We’re sorry.
The Colorado state fish, the greenback cutthroat trout, is not nearly as common as many people thought, a CU-Boulder study has found. Pure greenback cutthroats are almost completely extinct.
CU researcher Jessica Metcalf says greenback cutthroat are only found in a single stream near Colorado Springs. Lots of other trout might appear physically similar to greenbacks but aren’t the same genetically.
See the story at The New York Times Green blog.