The brown trout population in the Avon section of the Vail Valley's Eagle River has decreased between 20 percent and 30 percent the last four years and nobody is sure why. Several factors are in the equation to try and explain the drop-off in recent years — spring water levels, urbanization, contamination from the Eagle Mine site — but none have made sense to John Woodling, a biologist who has been tracking the Eagle River for 19 years. He shared his findings at a talk sponsored by the Eagle River Watershed Council’s Waterwise Wednesday program at the Avon library this week.

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