MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) – The survival of the brook trout, a fish native to New England since the end of the ice age, is in serious danger, the anglers’ group Trout Unlimited warned Wednesday.

Many lakes and stretches of stream in the Northeast no longer support the brightly colored fish. Their fragile habitat has been destroyed by urban sprawl, loss of forest cover, invasive species and water pollution, Trout Unlimited concludes in its report.

“New Hampshire and Vermont together have fewer than 20 lakes and ponds still supporting wild brook trout,” the report says.

New Englanders should pay attention, Trout Unlimited said, because the trout’s fate is emblematic of threats facing natural ecosystems across the region.

“As goes the brook trout, so goes New England,” the report concludes.

In Vermont, state fisheries biologists agree that brook trout are a marker of an ecosystem’s health, but they spoke in less dire terms of the fish’s status here.

A 1999-2000 study of 62 sites along 53 streams found that, overall, wild brook trout populations had not changed dramatically since the 1950s, said fisheries biologist Rich Kirn.

Vermont does not face the same pressures as Connecticut or Rhode Island, where large-scale suburbanization and industrialization – as well as intensive agriculture – has decimated the wild brook trout.

“I do think of Vermont as being in better shape than a lot of other New England states,” said Dana Baker, president of the group’s Central Vermont chapter. “We’re in relatively good shape now, but if we’re not careful we will begin to have even more problems.”

The Trout Unlimited report highlights efforts in each state to preserve or restore brook trout habitat. The report looks at a stretch of the Deerfield River in southern Vermont, where a power dam dried up more than four miles of river early in the 20th century.

During hearings to re-license the dam in the 1990s, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission required the power company to restore water to the river. Wild trout from nearby streams were stocked in the newly flowing river and established a new, self-sustaining population.