State game officials announced Friday they released more than 5,000 of the native trout into the creek and its tributaries as part of an effort to establish a healthy population of the pure strain trout and give anglers a chance to catch the state fish.

The Rio Grande cutthroat restoration project includes more than 150 miles of streams and 25 small lakes in the Rio Costilla watershed.

The Comanche Creek portion includes about 20 miles of small streams in the Valle Vidal of the Carson National Forest.

The state Game and Fish Department built barriers in the creek to prevent non-native fish from traveling upstream and they removed non-native fish above the barriers.