Trout Unlimited's focus is on cold water, but this week the group released its first position statement on global warming.

Using its own studies and new data from the U.S. Forest Service, the Washington, D.C., based cold water fisheries lobbying group predicts climate change will cause the widespread loss of trout and salmon -- as much as 90 percent in Appalachia and other regions -- over the next 50 years unless the public and private sectors partner to protect habitat now.

"Even a 4 1/2-degree increase in the mean July air temperature can have a dramatic impact on trout fisheries," said TU fisheries scientist Nathaniel Gillespie, who warned of an expanding list of endangered trout species and a huge decline in more common varieties. "Climate change will add additional stress to areas already heavily impacted by humans in terms of landscape and water quality."

The challenge is to help fisheries build resilience now, Gillespie said, through riparian tree planting, erosion and sedimentation control, dam removal and the restoration of flood plains. "We need to protect areas where fish are still in good shape," he said. "We have to look at whole watersheds, get rid of barriers and reconnect streams so fish have cooler water to move to, provide shade, keep livestock out of sensitive areas ... these kinds of things."

TU's public stance on global warming coincides with the introduction of the Climate Security Act, Senate Bill 2191, which would enable Congress to provide $175 billion over 30 years for projects aimed at helping fisheries cope with reduced snowpack, earlier spring runoff and other effects of rising mercury.

Although the measure has yet to wend its way through the legislative process, Gillespie said it is bringing new awareness to one of the planet's most dire dilemmas, "one that will be a driving factor in everything we do from now on."

Tom Shetterley, resource management chairman of the Chestnut Ridge chapter of Trout Unlimited and a southwestern Pennsylvania representative to the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, called TU's statement "long overdue," and said the bottom line is that "we have to pull the reins in on fossil fuels, which cause global warming."

He said state agencies, not volunteers, should be expected to take the lead in protecting streams, because they hold the purse strings and have the expertise. "A lot of physical things have to be done," he said, "and physical things cost money."

Ken Undercoffer, president of the Pennsylvania Council of Trout Unlimited, which oversees the commonwealth's 53 TU chapters, hopes TU's call to action will expand conservation efforts.

"The chapters have always been involved in stream work," he said.

"This just gives them special impetus to do more of the same. It helps get the issue of global warming and the whole concept of protecting streams more into the public consciousness."