Cutbow Trout: The Future of Alberta’s Cutthroat Streams
As the name implies, a cutbow trout is a hybrid species that is the result of a mating event between a rainbow trout and a cutthroat trout. These species chromosomes arrangements are similar enough that they can mate and their offspring are usually viable and able to reproduce. After enough generations of interbreeding between the two species, the cutbow genes become the dominant genes and the pure genetics of the native westslope cutthroat are slowly diluted, eventually being lost all…