Gila Trout Recovery & Angling

Gila Trout have been described as “taking their colors from the New Mexican sunset”, an apt description. Their iridescent gold sides blend to a darker shade of copper on the gill covers. Small, profuse spots cover the upper half of the body and a faint, salmon-pink band is present on adults, particularly during spawning season. A yellow cutthroat mark is present on most larger fish and parr marks are commonly found on adults. Because Gila Trout are often found in small streams, they rarely grow larger than 12 inches, but given adequate habitat can grow to over 15 inches. 

Gila Trout typically spawn in early spring when water temperatures are rising. They reach sexual maturity by age 3 and live between 4 and 6 years. Gila Trout are capable of hybridizing with Rainbow Trout which has greatly reduced the range of pure Gila Trout. 

In New Mexico, the heart of Gila Trout habitat is in the Gila and Aldo Leopold Wilderness Areas. These areas of the Gila National Forest contain nearly the entire currently occupied habitat of Gila Trout. The Gila River Basin is a vast area of perennial rivers, steep walled canyons, rolling grasslands, dry uplands of juniper and piñon, forests of ponderosa pine, aspen groves, and high mountains of spruce and fir. Gila Trout inhabit coldwater mountain streams, hunting insects and hiding in fallen branches and undercut banks; finding refuge in pools fed by groundwater seeps during droughts. 

The Gila Wilderness Area was created in June 1924 at the urging of the conservation pioneer Aldo Leopold and was the world’s first designated wilderness. As part of congressionally designated wilderness, there are no roads and the only travel permitted is by foot or horseback. Logging is not allowed, nor any commercial use except livestock grazing. Hunting and fishing activities, however, are open to everyone under laws set by the New Mexico State Game Commission. 

Gila Trout are relatives of Pacific Salmon and Rainbow Trout, originally making their way up into the mountains of the Southwest by migrating from the Gulf of California. As the climate and landscape changed, they could no longer move between the mountains and the ocean. Their range was reduced to the mountain streams of the Gila, San Francisco, and Verde river basins in New Mexico and Arizona, where they evolved to survive harsh conditions. By the late 1800’s land use practices led to habitat deterioration. Meanwhile, overfishing reduced wild stocks while stocking of nonnative fishes increased.  Nonnative trout compete with, predate upon, and sometimes interbreed with Gila Trout. These issues cumulatively began to take their toll on Gila Trout, and in the 1950’s, when the species was officially described, their range had been significantly reduced and populations remained in only five streams. 

Gila Trout was the first western North American fish with a management program focused on conservation. These efforts began as early as the 1920s when the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish established the Jenks Cabin Hatchery in the heart of the Gila and began raising Gila Trout. Around the same time, the agency established a policy of not stocking nonnative salmonids into streams known to support Gila Trout. In the 1950s, the first Gila Trout streams were closed to angling. Despite these efforts, Gila Trout was listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act of 1973 and the New Mexico Wildlife Conservation Act of 1974. 

Throughout the following decades, Gila Trout were returned to several streams in New Mexico after nonnative trout had been removed. These efforts lead to their down-listing to threatened in 2006. 

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Today, Gila Trout conservation is guided by the Gila Trout Recovery Plan (2022). A diverse team of State and Federal agencies as well as university researchers and non-governmental organizations collaborate on Gila Trout conservation. The partners include New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, US Forest Service, US Fish and Wildlife Service, the University of New Mexico, the Arizona Game and Fish Department, and Trout Unlimited. The agencies continue a program of stream restoration – removing nonnative species, constructing barriers to prevent nonnatives from reinvading, and reestablishing Gila Trout. 

In addition to competition and hybridization with nonnative trout, wildfire is a major threat to the survival of Gila Trout. Toxic ash flows following high-intensity wildfires often result in fish kills. Multiple wildfires have had the direct and immediate effect of eliminating fish from a stream and because of this, Gila Trout are often evacuated from streams that are threatened by wildfires. The nearly 300,000 acre Whitewater Baldy Fire, burned through nearly half of the existing Gila Trout streams in 2012 ,eliminating Gila Trout from six of the eight streams that were within the burned area and forcing evacuations from three streams following the fire. The 2021 Johnson Fire and 2022 Black Fire negatively impacted multiple populations of Gila Trout, including eliminating several populations and severely altering habitat in several watersheds. 

Current conservation efforts consist of returning Gila Trout to the streams affected by wildfires, continuing to establish them in new streams within their historical range, and developing opportunities to fish for this rare trout.