Dustin Wichterman lives trout. By day he manages Trout Unlimited’s restoration and protection work in the Potomac headwaters. Most of the rest of the time he’s either fishing for trout or dreaming about fishing for trout. And a big part of that dream is that one day the Potomac headwaters will again regularly churn out native brook trout pushing…
Southwest Colorado hosts some of the best high-mountain trout fishing in the country. From pristine mountain streams and lakes that hold native cutthroats, to larger rivers like the Animas, Southwest Colorado fishing is worth fighting for. That is exactly the reason behind TU’s extensive efforts to remediate acid mine waste from headwater streams in this…
Jim looked at me in disbelief. “What?” I repeated my question, “Why is it important that we recover southwestern native trout?” “Let me tell you a story,” he said. Jim Brooks was the longtime lead of the Gila Trout recovery team. Gila trout are native to the tributaries of the Gila River in New Mexico…
Gary recalls talking to a road engineer more familiar with channelizing and straightening rivers in response to floods. As he looked over the work “his face fell from pink to grey, and he said, ‘We have been doing this wrong for 100 years.’”
Renowned for their size, the Lewis and Clark River is still home to a remnant population of winter steelhead. But two perched and undersized culverts on private timber land blocked upstream and downstream passage for adult and juvenile native winter steelhead and coastal cutthroat trout to and from intact spawning habitat. One culvert was on…
Using historical photographs, anecdotal evidence and local knowledge, TU worked with project designers Doug Ray of Carex Consulting and Joseph Shehan from Oregon Dept of Fish and Wildlife to re-excavate a 14 plus acre historic off-channel wetland on the Necanicum River. The channel had been filled and converted to ag land. Habitats such as this…
Working with partners such as the local agencies, timber operators, other NGOs, private contractors and the City of Cannon Beach, TU’s science team completed an assessment and set of recommendations focusing on habitat restoration and stewardship projects in the 1,000-acre Ecola Creek Forest Reserve. Using our Conservation Success Index, we produced the Ecola Creek Native Salmonid…