Message from Chris Wood

This edition of the Complete Angler makes clear the value of the Coldwater Conservation Fund (CCF). The discipline and focus of our mission should not blind us to the power of partnerships.  The fish do best when other organizations and agencies appropriate our work as their own.  For example, scientific analysis funded by CCF is allowing TU to work with partners such as the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) to help recover native cutthroat trout as well as imperiled warmwater fish such as the bluehead sucker.  Take a look at Jeff Reardon's blog post [1], too. His remarkable work with an extraordinarily diverse coalition has resulted in the removal of several dams on the Penobscot, starting with the Great Works dam, next year.  The removal of these dams will open more than 1,000 miles of river for Atlantic salmon, shad, stripers, and a host of other migratory fish species. 

CCF support allows us to respond to fast-moving proposals that can have profoundly negative influences on wild fish. The recent Trout magazine article [2] by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Susan Stranahan points out the lunacy of the federal government proposing to permit the production and sale of genetically modified salmon while at the same time the state of Alaska contemplates permitting the construction of a massive gold mine in the headwaters of Bristol Bay, the world's most prolific wild salmon fishery. 

Similarly, CCF support makes it possible for TU to protect the last, best wild places where wild and native fish have persisted for millennia.  Landscapes such as the Roan Plateau in Colorado, where some of the most genetically pure Colorado River cutthtroat persist among the specter of oil and gas development; or in the Yaak, a luscious corner of northwest Montana where westslope cutts share a landscape with elk, grizzly bear, lynx, wolves, and wolverine.  Field and Stream spent the summer with TU staff cataloging these landscapes.  The article [3] is well worth reading. 

Thanks for your support and stay in touch.

Chris
cwood@tu.org [4]
703-284-9403, direct line