The Western Native Trout Initiative (WNTI) is excited to share a newly published article in Fisheries magazine, highlighting WNTI’s 20 years of collaborative conservation. The article is available here on WNTI’s website, and illustrates how developing portfolios of restoration projects is helping partners protect and restore native trout across the western United States. By bringing multiple restoration projects together under shared conservation goals, WNTI is helping partners coordinate funding, strengthen partnerships, and achieve meaningful, landscape-scale conservation results.
Since 2005, WNTI has helped direct more than $11.4 million in grant funding, matched by an additional $57 million in public and private investments, toward 254 priority conservation projects. These partnerships have removed 171 barriers to fish movement and reconnected more than 1,400 miles of stream habitat.
A key to WNTI’s success is its “portfolio concept,” which brings together multiple high-priority restoration projects under a shared conservation goal. The Bear River basin provides a compelling example. Between 2018 and 2024, partners completed 19 projects in Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming to improve fish passage and reconnect habitat for Bonneville Cutthroat Trout. These efforts restored access to 145 miles of stream habitat while also improving irrigation infrastructure, reducing erosion, and benefiting local landowners and communities.
WNTI recently released an interactive StoryMap showcasing this collaborative effort in the Bear River basin. Through maps, photographs, and project stories, readers can explore how partners are reconnecting river habitat and helping native trout move through the watershed. Explore the Bear River StoryMap.
WNTI is applying this same approach in Oregon’s Warner Basin, where partners are coordinating projects to improve fish passage and habitat for Warner Lakes Redband Trout and the threatened Warner Sucker. Working with irrigation districts, ranchers, landowners, and conservation partners, these efforts aim to benefit native fish while improving irrigation infrastructure and supporting local communities. Explore the Warner Basin StoryMap to learn more!
Looking ahead, WNTI is hoping to expanding the portfolio approach to additional watersheds and native trout species. By aligning conservation priorities, partnerships, and funding, WNTI aims to accelerate restoration, strengthen native fish populations, and protect healthy rivers and streams for wildlife, local communities, and future generations.