NEXT MEETING:Thursday, April 16, 2020
7:00 p.m. Location: Online! Topic: Restoring the native Gila troutJoin AWF’s board at 7:00 pm for a "virtual fireside chat," where you can talk with us about how we are adjusting the 2020 project calendar to keep everyone safe during the current public health emergency, while still hopefully completing projects at many of our planned restoration sites once the danger has passed.
We will be sending out a link to our newsletter email list the week of the presentation with instructions for how you can log on and join us. At 7:30, we'll be bringing you AWF's first-ever online educational presentation! Wildlife biologist Jim Brooks will us about his work to recover the native Gila trout. By the time the Gila trout was listed as endangered in 1973, biologists estimate that its range had shrunk from 600 miles of stream to only 20. Today, biologists use methods such as piscicide (rotenone) to remove non-native trout and allow native trout to return. In addition, Citizen Science projects monitor Gila trout stream habitats impacted by wildfire and climate change, identifying specific stream reaches that need restoration and assessing the effectiveness of past restoration activities. 
Speaker: Jim BrooksJim Brooks is native to the American Southwest, born and raised in eastern Arizona in a small mining town close to “Gila Country.” After pursuing undergrad and graduate school in Arizona, Jim worked eight years for the Arizona Game and Fish Department as a reservoir fisheries research biologist, conservation officer, and native fish biologists until 1985 when he moved to New Mexico. He then went to work for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, running a field office dedicated to rare native fishes conservation, tribal recreational fisheries management, federal water project assessments, and native fishes inventory of highland waters of northern Mexico. Since retiring in 2014, Jim has continued on with native fishes conservation efforts as a privately employed contract biologist and wilderness packer for Trout Unlimited, U.S. Forest Service, and New Mexico Department of Game and Fish. Jim formed a small wilderness outfitting business in support of scientific and natural history projects and enjoyment of wilderness. Jim leads a citizen science effort to inventory and monitor Gila stream habitats impacted by wildfire and climate change, employing volunteers from non-governmental organizations, university students, high/mid/grade-school students from local communities, and cooperating federal and State agencies.
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