Determining Brook Trout Extirpation

Description

This document serves as guidance for Chesapeake Bay Program partners within the Brook Trout Workgroup for determining brook trout extirpation within previously occupied catchments of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Use of this document is intended to provide partners with general spatiotemporal sampling guidelines to improve confidence when deciding to designate a previously occupied catchment as extirpated. 

Note: Partners are not expected to routinely provide current brook trout occupancy records for all known catchments. This document is intended only to advise partners when scheduled surveys occur and brook trout are not collected in previously documented locations. All historically occupied catchments that are not sampled within occupancy reporting windows will be assumed present until subsequent sampling following this guidance confirms extirpation.

Decisions made from this document will inform annual progress monitoring towards the Brook Trout Outcome occupancy goal.