Our Mission
To bring together diverse interests to care for and recover rivers and streams so our children can experience the joy of wild and native trout and salmon.
Our Vision
For communities across America to engage in the work of repairing and renewing the rivers, streams and other waters on which we all depend.
Who We Are
Trout Unlimited is the nation’s leading conservation organization working to care for and recover rivers and streams and their trout and salmon populations. We bring people together across the country to be champions for their rivers and help make our water cleaner and our communities healthier.
Founded by a band of Michigan anglers in 1959, we have grown into a national organization with more than 350 staff, 400 chapters and 300,000 members and supporters.
Our conservation efforts are driven by science and focused on protecting, reconnecting and restoring more than 200 Priority Waters across the country. The work we do builds trout and salmon strongholds for the long term, while at the same time providing healthy water for communities and agriculture, helping landscapes adapt to and recover from flooding and wildfire, creating family-wage jobs in local communities, and powering America’s trillion-dollar outdoor economy.
From Oregon to Michigan to Maine, our people live in the communities where they work. TU’s staff are conservationists restoring rivers and streams, scientists providing the data and tools that make for effective conservation, policy professionals mobilizing anglers and outdoors enthusiasts to advocate for healthy rivers, wild and native trout and salmon, clean water, and public lands. Our volunteers are community leaders and business owners who dedicate more than 700,000 hours each year to TU’s mission, inviting and inspiring others in their communities to care for their waters.
We have a long track record of success. We were instrumental in removing the Klamath dams in California and Oregon and the Edwards Dam on the Kennebec in Maine. We led the charge for a new law making it easier to clean up abandoned mines. We helped our tribal partners beat back the proposed Pebble mine in Bristol Bay and spearheaded protection of more than 38 million acres of public lands. We invest millions of dollars in communities across America to restore rivers and fisheries, address crumbling road infrastructure, and mitigate threats from wildfire, drought, and floods.
This work adds up: Every year, Trout Unlimited protects hundreds of thousands of acres of public lands, conserves hundreds of miles of streams, and restores more than a thousand miles of rivers.
Sixty years after our founding, no other conservation organization is as well placed as Trout Unlimited to make a difference for the nation’s coldwater fisheries. To learn more about Trout Unlimited’s ambitious conservation agenda, please visit the conservation section of our website.
If you’re interested in becoming a part of Trout Unlimited and giving back to the fish and the places you value, become a member and help us ‘save the world, one trout at a time.’
Visit the TU Staff Directory
Visit our staff directory to see a list of our conservation professionals.