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BANFF NATIONAL PARK — The small westslope cutthroat trout slide out of a blue camping cooler as Mark Taylor carefully lowers it into their new home, Rainbow Lake.

Taylor, an aquatics ecologist for Banff National Park, has rigged the cooler with an oxygen tank and hauled the fish on a helicopter from nearby Sawback Lake, where staff and volunteers caught the trout.

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It’s only a three-minute ride, or a few kilometres as the crow flies, but it’s a historic move for both Banff National Park and the overall recovery of a species at risk.

“This is the first time that we have collectively, not just Parks Canada, created a new population of fish,” said Taylor.

The project to relocate about 100 fish, which took place on Wednesday and Thursday, fit into the recovery plan for the trout by both protecting the species and creating new populations.

Westslope cutthroat trout, an iconic Alberta fish named for the red slash on their throat, were federally listed as threatened under the Species at Risk Act in March 2013 due to habitat loss, overharvesting and competition with non-native species.