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' <br />11,500 feet, is a tree - dominated zone composed of such common vegetation <br />types as spruce, fir, lodgepole pine, aspen, sagebrush and grassland. The <br />Montane zone supports coniferous forests, aspen, grasslands, and riparian <br />growth at elevations between 8,000 and 10,000 feet. The Foothills zone <br />represents a shrub - dominated transition between the forested mountain <br />slopes and the plains grassland at an elevation between 6,000 and <br />8,000 feet. The upper Sonoran zone includes extensive grasslands below <br />6,000 feet, composed of mixed prairie, sand sagebrush, plains riparian <br />' <br />vegetation (referring to areas along the banks of a river) and agricultural <br />croplands. <br />Fish <br />All of the lakes, rivers and existing reservoirs in Colorado have been <br />evaluated based on the occurrence of threatened or endangered fish species, <br />high- interest species and the potential mitigation for habitat <br />restoration. The 1979 Stream and Lake Evaluation Map of the State of <br />' <br />Colorado (Colorado Division of Wildlife, U.S. Environmental Protection <br />Agency, and U.S. Forest Service, 1979) has been utilized to graphically <br />' <br />show the extent and quality of fisheries in the South Platte River basin <br />(Figure 6). Fisheries in the basin have been delineated using a cold and <br />warm water classification system. These fisheries generally occur as <br />mountain streams, lake and reservoir habitat, and as plains streams, lake, <br />' <br />and reservoir habitat (Dave Weber, personal communication, Colorado <br />Division of Wildlife, May 1981). <br />' Cold water streams are located in deep, shaded, rock -lined channels <br />characteristic of the mountains, which contain cold water species. As the <br />' mountain streams emerge onto the plains, average water temperatures <br />increase and oxygen replenishment decreases. Fisheries often are in a <br />' transitional state as streams flow into warmer, open plains areas. The <br />reservoirs and streams of the foothills are considered transitional, cool <br />water fisheries. For example, Carter Lake and Horsetooth Reservoir are <br />I -11- <br />I <br />