Once plentiful, now threatened: The fate of the bull trout is also ours

In my eighth decade of floating down the river of life, I realize my voyage has been interwoven with bull trout. I’ve grown old with these sinister looking, torpedo-shaped native fish of the Eastern Slopes and bigger rivers.

My thoughts have stirred the silt of memories, helping me recall the role bull trout have played in my life and career.

I originally knew them as Dolly Varden, a passing reference to a gaily dressed young woman — especially her pink-spotted calico dress — in one of Charles Dickens’ novels. In the taxonomic renaming of this char species to bull trout (based on a large head and jaws), I sense the loss of a quaint description for Alberta’s population.

My first encounter was as a child on the Tay River, a Clearwater River tributary, looking down into the depths of a poo