KMZs and other files showing the distribution of Gila Trout are available from the download system.

Gila Trout today inhabit a tiny range tucked away in the Gila Mountains, roughly mid-way between Albuquerque and Phoenix.  We provide here several data sources about where to find them.

In a sense, the most useful is the NM Game and Fish website.  That's because angling opportunities for wild Gila Trout are highly restricted. Note that if you go fishing for wild Gila Trout you'll need to pick up a special permit before you head out.  It's available from the NMGFD website.

As of the date of this article, there are only 3 stream reaches in the world where it is legal to fish for wild Gila trout, and they are the reaches marked bright  yellow in the interactive map above. As Gila have been downgraded from an "Endangered" species to "Threatened", and as there are active programs to re-establish the fish across a broader range, we can hope there will be broader opportunities in the near future.  Indeed, one of the three wild trout areas didn't exist in 2001.  At that time, there were 9 stream segments which supported wild populations of trout.

There are three KMZs in the download system. The most current is the one shown in the interactive map. It was adapted from a 2008 PowerPoint presentation made by NMDGF which we found on the Internet. It shows all of the current reaches supporting Gila trout within NM, marked Green, except for the three which are legal for fishing, which are marked yellow.

Second (shown below) is a KMZ we created before we discovered the first one, based on the populations in the Gila Trout Recovery Plan, revised 2003.  As you'd expect there's a great deal of overlap with the previous dataset.  The plan doesn't provide specific information on reaches, so we marked the entire stream (not just the specific reaches which are marked in the previous KMZ).  There are also some AZ streams which are marked in this dataset but not the previous.  Note, however, that it is currently illegal to fish for wild Gila Trout in Arizona.

Third is the TU Conservation Success Index.  It's normally a very useful dataset, but kind of useless in this context, given the regulations.  It color-codes basin habitat quality: blue, green, yellow, orange, red (from best to worst).  Brown basins are places which used to be part of the range, but where the species is now extirpated.  Clearly, TU thinks that 2 of the 2001 streams are no more (one in the core area, and one in central Arizona).

Source: Google Earth images with basin overlays by TU Conservation Success Index.  Magenta and yellow stream segments encoded by WildTroutStreams.com.  Magneta streams are based on the 2002 Gila Trout Recovery Plan.  Yellow stream reaches are based on maps provided by NMGFD.