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Fifty years on, Supreme Court case threatens to upend the Clean Water Act
Conservation is a marathon, and if ever we needed proof, consider what is playing out in the U.S. Supreme Court. Fifty years to the month after the passage of the Clean Water Act, justices heard arguments this week in a case that could upend protections for more than half the nation’s wetlands—and if the plaintiffs…
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Bull trout in Montana: Back from the brink?
In a watershed scarred by mining, TU is giving threatened fish populations a chance at recovery If you’ve ever driven Interstate 90 between Bozeman and Missoula, Mont., you’ve followed the winding Clark Fork River past Warm Springs. The unincorporated community is known for its state psychiatric hospital – built in the late 19th century –…
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Alaska’s Indigenous communities at work in the Tongass
Southeast Alaska tribes have long cared for their lands. Now they’re at work restoring them. At nearly 17 million acres, Southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest is part of the world’s largest remaining intact temperate rain forest and produces around 30 percent of annual salmon catch in the western United States. The Tongass is home to…
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Beers, backcountry, e-bikes: Angler scientists at work
A volunteer chapter in Washington State is going the distance to collect trout and salmon eDNA samples in their home water Fed by glaciers and deep snowpack, the Nooksack River joins the Pacific Ocean near Bellingham, Washington, a half-hour drive south of the Canadian border. Upstream, the basin’s cold headwaters originate high in the Cascade…
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Unfishing Season
Abstaining from fishing doesn’t just happen. There must be a reason. As New Mexico swims through its third fat month of monsoon season, I’ve barely noticed how much water is in our streams. Winter was scary dry, then our shirt-sleeve spring collided with New Mexico’s largest-ever wildfire. Every morning from April to July, I stepped…
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‘No constituency for orange rivers’
It’s time for Congress to jump-start abandoned mine cleanups In testimony before Congress, Trout Unlimited President and CEO Chris Wood pressed lawmakers to clear the way for “Good Samaritan” agencies and groups like TU to clean up pollution from abandoned hardrock mines that plague the landscape. Chris Wood's testimony begins at 00:49 Every single day,…
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‘A. Very. Large. Brown. Trout.’
To catch the biggest fish, sometimes you just need to be in the current MARTINSVILLE, Va. — “Right! Right!” Hunter Hatcher was yelling as he furiously pulled on the raft’s oars. Turning, I saw the reason for his exuberance: a brown trout. A. Very. Large. Brown. Trout. OK. Maybe not very large by Tierra del…