[5] In the winter 2007 issue of Trout, in an article titled Toward Definitiveness, Dr. Behnke relates a summer 2006 electrofishing (sampling) project with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW).

He realized that the stream he'd referenced in 2005 was above the maximum Pleistocene lake level of any downstream flow-connected basins, and thus he doubts that redband trout ever made it to this elevated location.

In a 2007 publication of the Oregon Chapter of the American Fisheries Society, entitled Redband Trout Resilience and Challenge in a Changing Landscape, Dr. Behnke comments that he believes there is a strong possibility that trout caught in this stream circa World War II (confirmed by local historian Mr. Bruce Gilinski, who had direct experience on the stream just after World War II) were derived from the early transplant of the now extinct Alvord cutthroat.

Dr. Behnke has urged the State of Oregon to create a population of trout phenotypically representative of the "extinct" alvordensis by transplanting specimens that most closely resemble alvordensis into presently fishless waters, where they can self-propagate and preserve the phenotype (if not genotype) of the Alvord cutthroat trout.

This move proved premature and ill-timed, as once the results genetic study were available, it indicated that only ~3% of the genetics were from rainbow trout (Pritchard et al. 2015) Additionally, during the same period as that the hatchery program was initiated Southeastern Oregon was hit by several years of extreme drought.