Major Forest Service Policies Could Be Changing: Heres What's at Stake...

You would not want to be a cutthroat trout in the Middle Fork of the Judith River before 2023. Along a 6-mile stretch of this water in central Montana, there were more than 80 entrances to the river and 27 shallow spots where everything crossed, from cars to off-highway vehicles like side-by-sides.

Chris Edgington, a watershed project manager with Montana Trout Unlimited, says by 2020 sediment runoff from vehicles moving through the river had gotten so bad it was choking out nearly all the fish.

“The fish population was estimated to be less than 10 percent of what we’d expect of a river that s...