Hot Trout: Will we still be fishing for trout in 100 years? It might be a risky bet to say yes.  One study estimates that due to warmer temperatures alone, we could lose between 5 to 30% of trout habitat in western Montana over the next century, and sensitive species like bull trout could be all but gone.

Another recent study looked at how the IPCC temperature predictions might impact impact bull trout, already listed as “threatened” on the endangered Species Act.  As lower elevation streams warm up during the summer, bull trout will survive only in cooler waters at higher elevations.  As these habitat patches shrink, and as populations of trout become isolated from each other, the species as a whole will begin to die out.  The study predicted a loss of 27 to 99% of large-enough habitat patches by the end of the century.