Healthy Watersheds Mean Better Fish and Wildlife Habitat

Added: 2026-05-19

[00:00:00]Most people think Arizona is completely desert. Um, sarro cactus. Today we're located on the West Fork Black River.

[00:00:07]We're at 9,000 ft. We're right next to a trout stream right now. So, it's a very kind of a hidden gem for the Southwest.

[00:00:14]There's a huge uh community of trout anglers that seek out our different native trout species across the West.

[00:00:20]The Western Native Trout Initiative has a trout challenge that you can travel across the West and fish for all the different native species.

[00:00:27]>> They're traveling from Florida. They're traveling from like the east coast just to come largely to spots like this to recreate.

[00:00:35]>> It's just the classic economic benefit for these rural communities and it's a natural byproduct of the landscape behind me.

[00:00:43]>> A healthy forest is absolutely critical to to watershed resilience. This area was hit by one of the largest wildfires, well the largest wildfire in Arizona history called the wallow fire. It's about 500,000 acres.

[00:00:55]Wet meadow restoration is going to be critical to weathering that storm. We're going to store water in these meadows much longer than we typically have in the past. Most of our national forests are the wersheds that feed the Colorado River. And so it's so critical to protect these waterersheds, protect public lands, and invest in our national forest because that's what provides water to us.

[00:01:14]>> The moment I got here 12 years ago, I fell in love with this area. Like I want my kids to be able to recreate on our public lands. It's in my opinion one of the greatest legacies we have as a country.