Brook Trout Action Team

Meetings

About

The Brook Trout Action Team facilitates restoration and conservation initiatives in cold-water stream areas that make progress toward 2025 Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement:

Outcome:

Protect and enhance brook trout within the Chesapeake Bay watershed by increasing occupancy, abundance and resilience to changing environmental conditions.

• By 2040, increase brook trout occupancy by 1.5% (233 miles) in watersheds supporting healthy populations while achieving no net loss in other watersheds.
• By 2040, increase abundance at 10 long-term monitoring sites.
• By 2040, reduce identified threats by 15% to increase brook trout resilience in watersheds supporting healthy populations.
   

Brook Trout Action Team Leads By Organization/Jurisdiction:

• MD: 

  Matt Lawrence, Maryland Department of Natural Resources james.lawrence@maryland.gov

  Jason Cessna, Maryland Department of Natural Resources jason.cessna@marylad.gov 
   

• PA:

  Jason Detar, Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission jdetar@pa.gov 
   

• NY:

  Fred Henson, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation fred.henson@dec.ny.gov
   

• VA:

  Brad Fink, Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources brad.fink@dwr.virginia.gov|
   

• WV:

  David Thorne, West Virginia Division of Natural Resources david.w.thorne@wv.gov
   

• Trout Unlimited:

  To be determined. 
   

• Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture:

  Lori Maloney, Canaan Valley Institute & EBTJV Coordinator lori.maloney@canaanvi.org
   

• Western Pennsylvania Conservancy:

  Eric Chapman, WPC echapman@paconserve.org 

Projects

Publications

Related Resources

• Geospatial Planning App for Brook Trout STAC Workshop

  This application was designed to support the planning of the 2025 Brook Trout STAC Workshop. It is intended to be used as a decision support aid when choosing which watersheds to focus restoration efforts on within each of the selected counties.

• Using Environmental DNA (eDNA) to Track Brook Trout Recovery in Tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay - Raza, 2024

  A master's thesis on utilizing environmental DNA (eDNA) to monitor the recovery of brook trout in the tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay.

• The Importance of Scale: Assessing and Predicting Brook Trout Status in its Southern Native Range - Hudy et al., 2013

  A report on fine-scale occupancy data across the southern historic range of brook trout determines which landscape metrics and thresholds are useful in predicting brook trout presence across three relevant spatial scales and how brook trout occupancy varies by scale.

• EBTJV Salmonid Catchment Assessment and Habitat Patch Layers - Coombs and Nislow, 2015

  A step-by-step description of extending, standardizing and automating the salmonid status assessment.

• Range-wide Assessment of Brook Trout at the Catchment Scale: A Summary of Findings - 2016

  A revised summary of the EBTJV's range-wide assessment of brook trout at the catchment scale.

• Distribution, Status and Land Use Characteristics of Subwatersheds within the Native Range of Brook Trout - Hudy et al., 2008

  A report that examined and summarized existing knowledge regarding the distribution and status of self-sustaining populations of brook trout at the subwatershed scale.