Coastal cutthroat trout fresh from the ocean. A Thom Glace illustration.

Melting glaciers shrinking cold-water streams, trout extinction?

Found: Last Tuesday’s major newspapers and magazine stories and government and scientific reports on the subject of this title were not uplifting. Reporting: U.S., Argentina, Canada, Greenland, New Zealand, Norway, Pyrenees, Sweden, Alps, Russia . . .

By Skip Clement  with illustrations by Thom Glace

Angie said, ‘It is discomforting to read all this negativity about what I care so much. No promising participation by politicians to focus on ways to end global dependence on fossil fuels exists.’

Phenology changes will threaten the ‘bug’ world – trout 7-Eleven. Male Hendrickson Dun – Thom Glace illustration.

Some scientists claim the end of glaciers is near, putting massive extinction of a significant proportion of glacial mountain ranges in the world, coming to a stream near you as early as 2100 to 2150—literally, two minutes from now in geological time.

Reprinted with permission – Rainbow, Brown, and Brook. The rainbow is a westerner by birthright and includes the steelhead, and the brook is a native easterner, but it is not a trout. It’s a char with Maine and Eastern Canada, where the big boys get caught. This illustration by world-renowned watercolorist Thom Glace.

But before we get there, and not if we do but when

• NYTimes: ‘Zombie Trout’ Unsettle Montana, Long a Fly-Fishing Mecca
• Bears, Bees, trouts: The Impacts of Climate Change on Phenology/USGS-Adaptations
• Shrinking glaciers upend lives across South America/U.N. Environment Programme
• Montana fly-fishing guide sees effects of melting glaciers firsthand/Yale Climate Connections
• Melting glaciers may reduce Greenland fishery/Arctic News and Events
• What are the impacts of glacier loss, other than losing an aesthetic landscape feature?/U.S. Geological Survey
• Saving Bull Trout (U.S. National Park Service)
• NYTimes: In a Storied River, Fish Are Dying in Droves as Climate Change Scorches Canada
• Glaciers and loss of same (PDF-NPS)
• NYTimes: California Salmon Stocks Are Crashing. A Fishing Ban Looks Certain
• Melting Scandinavian glaciers made Europe cool and dry/Science Nordic

One of Montana’s most threatened trouts, the bull trout (Salvelinus confluentus). Illustration by award winning artist, Thomt Glace.

The world we built is rebelling 

Gimme more stuff isn’t the answer

Bear Glacier’s average annual rate of retreat has been increasing in recent years. Since Bear Glacier reached its Little Ice Age (LIA) maximum position in 1888 (1) it has retreated 4.0 mi (6.4 km), with most of that loss occurring since 1950. In the last 14 years, from 2005-2019, Bear Glacier’s average annual rate of retreat has nearly doubled compared to the last half century with an average annual rate of 554.4 ft/year (169.0 m/year). From September 2, 2018 through August 8, 2019, Bear Glacier retreated 2,640 ft (900 m), resulting in a loss of 12.5 million sq ft (1.2 million sq m) of ice at the glacier’s terminus.