Why study trout and trout streams? They are just fish like any other fish---Right! Wrong! Trout require high quality environments to live in. If you live in an area or state where your trout streams are diminishing in numbers and or quality this should tell you something about serious environmental degradation.
Trout and salmon require optimum conditions to live including water quality. From temperature range to oxygen levels these fish and their environment give us a very good report card on what's happening in our complex society. Trout won't survive in poor water quality. Toxins, chemicals and other perturbations are immediately recognized by trout. They are better than "The Canary in a Coal Mine." In fact, if you do a survey of the environmental condition your trout streams are in for the last 20 years you will get a good idea of the ecological status of everything else.
From an economic standpoint these streams and the fish in them bring in a massive amount of money into the economy. States with trout streams have a cash cow that's hard to match. For example, in Pennsylvania fishing and hunting was the number two industry in the state, much of that being derived from trout fishing. This income comes not only from fishing but from lodging, travel, food and other spending.
