Jean Craighead George
The Case of the Missing Cutthroats
Stealth Science
Why this book counts
- Life Science
- Environment & Ecology
- Maker / Problem-Solving
- Nature Narrative / Field Discovery
- Story / Adventure
Spinner catches a cutthroat trout believed gone from the river, turning one unexpected fish into the evidence at the center of an ecological mystery. She and her cousin must explain how a remnant population survived, so habitat and endangered-species reasoning supply the detective work.
The science inside
- Conservation
- Ecosystems
- Scientific Discovery & Careers
- Animals & Zoology
Your child will meet:
- Finding one organism can disprove a claim that a species is absent from that exact place, but it does not establish a healthy population.
- A remnant fish population depends on suitable water conditions, habitat connections, food, and reproduction.
- Ecologists combine individual observations with repeated surveys and habitat evidence.
- Protecting a rediscovered population requires limiting disturbance while evidence is gathered.
Use it this way
Parent effort: Quick discussion
This mystery begins when Spinner, a New York City native who would rather pirouette than fly cast, catches the family prize--much to her boy cousins' dismay. The prize fish, a huge cutthroat trout, had been thought to be extinct in the river, and Spinner and her cousin set out to solve the mystery of how this one spectacular cuttroat survived until Spinner reeled him in. HarperCollins is pleased to republish Jean Craighead George's fourth ecological mystery, which was first published in 1975 as Hook a Fish, Catch a Mountain.
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