Conservation

The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources and Utah Trout Unlimited announced on February 19 the selection of five new native trout projects to receive funding from the Utah Cutthroat Slam, a popular catch-and-release challenge that asks anglers to land all four of the state's native cutthroat trout subspecies—Bonneville, Colorado River, Bear Lake and...

The Berkshire Environmental Action Team (BEAT), a Pittsfield-based nonprofit, has launched a statewide campaign called "Stop Non-Native Fish Stocking," demanding that the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife (MassWildlife) end the routine release of hatchery-raised trout into the state's rivers, lakes, and ponds. The campaign escalates a fight...

Colorado Parks and Wildlife has confirmed a "large-scale fish kill" along the Rio Grande below Del Norte after a river restoration project dried up 7.2 miles of channel during a winter cold snap. The kill wiped out brown trout and rainbow trout from 2-inch fingerlings to 24-inch adults, along with native species that have inhabited the upper Rio Grande for...

Brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) now occupy 33 of 42 western Adirondack study streams—more than half of which held no trout in the mid-1980s—according to a peer-reviewed U.S. Geological Survey study published in Freshwater Science in December 2025. The research, commissioned by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA)...

California Trout issued a stark warning on February 18: without science-based federal climate action, the state's wild native fish face "almost certain extinction events." The statement landed six days after the EPA formally rescinded its 2009 endangerment finding, stripping the legal foundation for federal greenhouse gas regulation and—in CalTrout's...

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on February 11 announced $44.2 million in grants for water quality and habitat restoration across the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The 72 grants, awarded through the Chesapeake Bay Stewardship Fund's Innovative Nutrient and Sediment Reduction (INSR) and Small...

As fly fishermen along the Atlantic coast prepare for the spring migration, the regulatory picture for 2026 is now settled—and largely unchanged. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission's Striped Bass Management Board voted in late October 2025 to maintain current management measures, rejecting a proposed 12 percent coastwide harvest reduction...

A decades-long legal battle over the fate of four federal dams on the Lower Snake River has entered a critical new phase, with environmental plaintiffs and the Trump administration heading toward a pivotal courtroom showdown. Tomorrow marks the deadline for legal briefs in what could become one of the most consequential rulings for Pacific Northwest salmon...

A bombshell report released on January 5, 2026, by Fly Fisherman magazine, detailing new survey data from Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW), has sent shockwaves through the angling community. The study focuses on the Lower Blue River near Kremmling, a designated Gold Medal water, and paints a grim picture of a fishery in imbalance. According to aquatic...

Looking back, the big story of 2025 was the miraculous recovery of the Klamath River. Following the final removal of the four lower dams (Iron Gate, Copco 1 & 2, and J.C. Boyle) late last year, 2025 became the "Year of the Return." Reports from California Trout and the Yurok Tribal Fisheries Department confirmed what optimists hardly dared to hope: by...