Niagara College G.I.S. post-graduate student, Kyle Swanson and his working partner Jordan Pietronero taking temperature readings in the headwaters using a Forward Looking Infrared camera (FLIR)
Niagara Chapter TUC Receives a Quarter of a Million Dollars to Restore Niagara’s Last Trout Stream
Niagara Chapter Receives Funding. TUC’s Niagara Chapter is beginning an ambitious program to restore Twelve Mile Creek, the last remaining spring-fed watershed in the Niagara Region of Southern Ontario capable of sustaining populations of trout. The Chapter has formed a partnership with the Niagara Restoration Council (NRC), a non-profit conservation organization that has been very active in restoring wild lands and animal habitat. The partnership has paid off with significant donations from TD Bank Friends of the Environment Fund, from the Ontario Trillium Foundation, and from the Recreational Fisheries Conservation Partnership Program totaling almost $250,000.
For the past five years, the Niagara Chapter has been working closely with Niagara College’s Post-Graduate Environmental Programs to survey and analyze various reaches of Twelve Mile Creek, and these very detailed scientific reports will form the basis of the work that will be undertaken through the restoration program.
At a planning session held last month at local Calamus Winery, stakeholders along the Twelve received an orientation to restoration work from TUC National Biologist, Jack Imhof and outlines of the work currently underway from the Niagara College Ecosystem Restoration and Geographic Information Systems students. Imhof and Prof. Ian Smith of Niagara College then led a discussion of best practices and specific goals for a three-year work plan. From that all-day session, Niagara Restoration Council manager Allison Graszat has formulated an outline for the three-year plan.
Niagara College G.I.S. post-graduate student, Kyle Swanson presents his findings on groundwater temperature and the potential for Brook Trout habitat in Twelve Mile Creek headwaters.
Work has already begun, with plantings of shade and bank stabilization species taking place during the spring. This work has proven especially challenging as an over-population of deer browses on anything previously planted. Investigations are underway to find native species of plants that will fill the program objectives while being unpalatable to the deer.
The next phase of the program will involve fish surveys in the headwaters of the Twelve and downstream through Short Hills Provincial Park to determine the current extent of trout populations. A small and fragile population of native Brook Trout is known to exist in the headwaters, but human intervention and silting downstream have had a negative impact. Through electro-fishing and seine netting, the partners hope to establish a baseline for trout populations in order to accurately determine the long-term effects of their restoration efforts.
Among the restoration work already planned is the removal of perched culverts, creation of suitable spawning habitat, insertion of fascines (a bundle of sticks bound together for filling in marshy ground or strengthening the sides of embankments), ongoing planting of shade and bank stabilization species, and building of log deflectors to slow the stream at key erosion-sensitive points.
Niagara Chapter President, Dennis Edell, points out that, “Productive partnerships are the key to getting anything done on this fragile, diverse, and difficult stream. Landowners, the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Fisheries, Niagara College, and a host of other interest groups must cooperate and contribute if we are to make a difference. The Niagara Chapter of TUC has been able to act as host and broker to assemble a working group that can now significantly improve the last trout stream in Niagara.”
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