Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture
The Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture (EBTJV; http://www.easternbrooktrout.org/) was established in 2004 out of concern for the health of the many populations of the only native Eastern trout species. Recognizing that many common threats existed across the Georgia to Maine range, state fishery managers joined together with federal agency representatives, private conservation groups and scientists to assess the problem and plan action. To date, EBTJV has completed the first ever range-wide assessment of eastern brook trout, developed strategic action plans to conserve eastern brook trout resources, and communicated its efforts to other partners. The EBTJV's landscape-scale approach to eastern brook trout conservation has positioned it to support many scientific studies, including climate change assessments. A direct monitoring approach across the EBTJV range to rank individual populations for resiliency to climate change has been initiated with a pilot study in Virginia. Climate change is predicted to extirpate many of the existing brook trout throughout their native range and eliminate brook trout in Virginia. Relationships between air and water temperature will be quantified and modeled to rank the existing fish populations for their resiliency to climate change. These resiliency ratings can be used for prioritizing protection and restoration efforts in landscape-scale conservation planning.
