2020 Habitat Rehabilitation Projects Planned for the Upper North Saskatchewan River Watershed
Radiant Creek
2019 was a good year in the west-country with work on watershed rehabilitation projects along the Tay River, Rocky Creek, and Fall Creek in the upper North Saskatchewan River Watershed. In addition, thanks to funding through the Environmental Damages Fund, TUC was able to contract AJM Environmental Inc to identify areas of concern and habitat rehabilitation activities along several tributaries where impacts from cattle and feral horses, and current or historical OHV use is impacting Bull Trout habitat. Over 52 points of direct or indirect influence on these streams were identified along Elk Creek, Peppers Creek, and Radiant Creek -all tributaries of the Clearwater River. Impacts on each creek varied with the most frequent and severe damage along Radiant Creek and Elk Creek resulting from excessive unconstrained livestock use along these watercourses. Impacts along Peppers Creek were primarily from historical OHV use in sensitive riparian areas. TUC is planning a habitat rehabilitation project along Radiant Creek and potentially Elk Creek in 2020 to install deterrence fencing and distribute large woody debris to exclude cattle and feral horses from sensitive riparian areas to help restore severely degraded Bull Trout habitat. We also plan to host bioengineering workdays to install live willow stakes along the banks. We are working with our partners at Alberta Environment and Parks to collaborate on work in these areas as well as continuing to identify additional areas where habitat rehabilitation works can be completed in the near future.
These activities fall under our Upper North Saskatchewan Watershed Project which was launched in October 2018 and will wrap up in late spring/early summer 2020. The project is a partnership between TUC and Alberta Environment and Parks. These activities are aligned with the Native Trout Recovery program and will benefit Bull Trout, Mountain Whitefish and other fish species and wildlife living in the area.
Elk Creek Shoreline Damage
As part of the rehabilitation work in the area, we are anticipating several volunteer workdays this coming spring to install a significant number of live willow stakes to jumpstart the recovery process for riparian plant communities.
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