Wolves and grizzly bears roamed the forests, bald eagles flew above the tree tops and Lahontan cutthroat trout filled the lake and streams.

That was the Lake Tahoe Basin about 150 years ago. The presence of humans has affected more than just lake clarity and Tahoe’s scenery.

Don Lane, U.S. Forest Service recreation manager and Tahoe historian, said coyotes, black bears and other animals have remained, but a lot of wildlife didn’t survive the clear-cutting of the forest in the 1800s and the development boom in the 1900s.

Grizzly bears, wolves and wolverines have vanished.

While sighting a mule deer inside the basin is now uncommon, large herds of deer used to move through the area. Mountain lions, now rare, were likely more prevalent, as were bald eagles.

Fish populations have changed as much, if not more, than the wildlife. There is a bigger variety of fish now, but not nearly as many native fish.

Before settlement, the Lahontan cutthroat trout was the only native fish in the salmon or trout family at Tahoe. The fish, now listed as threatened on the federal endangered species list, were commonplace in the lake and nearly all of Tahoe’s 63 tributaries.

Logging and development ruined spawning habitat in most of Tahoe’s streams, and commercial fishing in the early 1900s took thousands of the fish from Tahoe.

The Lahontan cutthroat trout disappeared.

Later in this century, with no available Lahontan eggs, California and fishing club officials planted other fish: brown, rainbow, lake and brook trout as well as kokanee salmon. Because of the better habitat, the Lahontan cutthroat trout population 150 years ago probably exceeded the current populations of all those fish combined, said Jeff Reiner, fisheries biologist for the Forest Service.

In 1990, Lahontan cutthroat trout eggs were planted in the Meiss Meadows area at the headwaters of the Upper Truckee River. Now 3,000 live in that location. Reiner speculates that some have probably gone to the lake; however, none have been found in Tahoe’s water.

“If we have 3,000 now, I don’t know how many Lahontan cutthroat trout there could have been in the Lake Tahoe Basin,” Reiner said. “It could have been anywhere from half a million to 5 million.”

Even large-mouth bass, a species of warm-water fish, have appeared in Tahoe in recent years, something Forest Service and California Fish and Game officials don’t want to see.

“Warm-water species do not do well in cold-water specific environments,” Reiner said. “We have enough non-native fish in Lake Tahoe. We don’t need more.”