Editor’s note: The following two guest opinions are part of a series from Crest View Elementary School 5th graders. Each piece was submitted with permission from the author’s parents.

Wouldn’t it be nice if it was easier to catch or see our native fish species, the Greenback Cutthroat Trout?

Have you ever wondered why there aren’t very many of them? You could help them thrive again in their natural habitat. I think people should take action and help our native fish species expand.

One thing we all should do is stop overfishing. Overfishing is a pretty easy thing to stop from happening. According to the news article “Giant Fish Saved From Close Call From Extinction,” overfishing nearly put an entire species of cutthroat into extinction. I think that fishing licenses should only let a certain number of people at a time into rivers and other local fishing locations to reduce overfishing.

Another thing that some of us can do to help is to not build factories that leak toxic chemicals to begin with. I think factories that use fossil fuels are just downright stupid. Those kinds of factories can easily kill fish if located by a river. This could be solved by tearing down and relocating toxic factories to safer places.

The final thing that you could do to help is farm raise fish. You should do this to help increase the population of our native fish species. According to the state of Colorado, you do not need a license to farm raise fish in a pond or even in your backyard. I think that it is super cool that you can literally raise a school of fish in your backyard!

Doing even just one of the above makes our native fish last a whole lot longer. Seriously, do you want our native fish to vanish from Colorado or even the world?! This is why we need to take action. It would be so tragic if we lost our native fish. Please help them thrive. It’s been way too long and they seriously need our help. Together we can stop this tragedy!

Peter Jansky is a 5th grader at Crest View who enjoys fishing and most things STEM (science, technology, engineering and math).