South Fork Legacy

is a 501(c)(3) non-profit with the mission to leave the South Fork River as a preserved and enhanced ecosystem for future generations. Our focus is on diverse aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, pristine water quality, and abundant recreational opportunities.

PROTECT the

SOUTH FORK of

the SNAKE RIVER

The South Fork is one of the most successful diverse fisheries in the world, supporting healthy populations of a wild naturally reproducing hatchery influence Snake River Fine-Spotted Cutthroat trout/Yellowstone Large-Spotted Cutthroat (this level of hybridization is seen nowhere else in the upper Snake River drainage) Rainbow trout, Brown trout, hybridized Cutthroat and Rainbow trout (also called cuttbow trout), white fish, and native suckers.

The South Fork’s once native fishery has been reduced to a wild (naturally reproducing) fishery only. This is a result of 60+ years of historical hatchery influences, along with ongoing interbreeding from hatchery Finespotted Cutthroat passing through Palisades Dam on a daily basis.

Combine this with the unimpeded migration of Rainbow Trout from the heavily hatchery supported Henry’s Fork, and the South Fork is no longer a native fishery.

Subsequently the South Fork should be managed as a recreational fishery to the benefit of sportsmen and women.

The Issues

Between 1969 and 1981, the Idaho Department of Fish and game stocked 3.5 million Hatchery cutthroat, along with hundreds of thousands of hatchery reared rainbows and brown trout into the South Fork. This action forever altered the native landscape. Since 2019, the IDFG, funded by the Bureau of Reclamation, has electroshocked the SF twice a year to remove wild naturally reproducing Rainbow trout that coexist with the rivers wild population of Yellowstone and Finespotted Cutthroat. This misguided effort has removed over 40,000 rainbows and cuttbow hybrids with devastating impacts to the remaining wild trout populations. Socioeconomic interests that are dependent on the South Fork as a robust fishery are just beginning to feel the effects. River users from all over the United States who come to relish in the robust diversity that defines the SF, are feeling the negative effects of the multi year electroshocking efforts by IDFG.

The indiscriminate nature of electro-shocking has long term detrimental effects on all wild trout populations. These impacts are hurting the South Fork riparian corridor and ecosystem and the communities who rely on the vitality of an intact, unaltered South Fork.