Federal Funding Helping Brook Trout

Photo: USFWS Midwest/Flickr

Thanks to funding from president Joe Biden’s America the Beautiful Challenge, a tri-state initiative in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York will benefit native brook trout throughout the upper Delaware River watershed.

According to Zoe Read from WHYY, this group will get just over $3 million to help “federal and state environmental agencies, as well as local environmental groups, improve water quality and habitat for at-risk native brook trout in the coldwater streams of the Delaware River watershed.”

This group of three states working together on a single project is the first of its kind, according to Read’s reporting.

‘”The tri-state initiative is the first of its kind in the region,’ said Amy Wolfe, director of Trout Unlimited’s northeast coldwater habitat program.

“‘Our goal in this will be to focus on projects that can reconnect fragmented habitat and reduce pollution from sediment runoff and from other land use impacts in these areas,’ she said.”

This funding is part of $122 million from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that president Biden has directed be used to conserve 30% of America’s lands by 2030.

Habitat fragmentation is one of the biggest issues facing wildlife, not just fish. Big game suffers from it as well, but when it happens to trout, that usually means fish are cut off from their historical native range and spawning grounds. For fish like brook trout that need cool, clear water to successfully reproduce, restoring their access to this habitat can make a difference in the fish’s overall stability on the landscape.

And, as with most any conservation effort, it won’t just be anglers who benefit from this project.

According to Read’s reporting, “‘Even [for] somebody who isn’t interested in fishing for brook trout … the very same streams that we’re working on will actually help to protect and restore the very same water that people hundreds of miles downstream are using for drinking water,’ Wolfe said.”