Trout Creek is situated in the Porcupine Hills Public Land Use Zone (PLUZ) of Southwestern Alberta, and until recently, was home to a healthy population of Westslope Cutthroat Trout Oncorhynchus lewisi. Westslope Cutthroat Trout are listed as Threatened under the federal Species at Risk Act due to significant declines in abundance and in distribution. Trout Creek represented a special population as it was one of the easternmost watersheds containing the species, and had no alpine drainages, relying entirely on snowmelt and rainfall driven runoff and groundwater inputs, largely through many small springs found throughout the watershed. Over the decades, Trout Creek has been impacted by a multitude of industrial, recreational, and agricultural impacts which can result in changes to the timing and magnitude of stream flow, and in the quality of habitats available for fish and wildlife. Between 2015 and 2022, fish populations in Trout Creek experienced a steep crash, resulting in no fish detections in 2024. Freshwater Conservation Canada has been working in this watershed to protect the few remaining individuals, and to rehabilitate habitat so that these fish can be reintroduced into the watershed in the next several years. To achieve this vision, several activities were completed in 2025, described in detail here.
Habitat rehabilitation
2024 was another busy year in the Trout Creek watershed, with implementation of low-tech process-based restoration (LTPBR), namely beaver dam analogues (BDA) installed along Kingbolt Creek, Minor Coulee Creek and Trout Creek. In total, 3 new structures were constructed in the headwaters of Trout Creek, 7 new structures were built on Minor Coulee Creek, and 7 new structures were installed on Kingbolt Creek in addition to some maintenance and repairs of the 11 BDAs built in 2023. These structures will help to retain spring runoff and force this water up onto abandoned floodplains, rehydrating valley bottom soils and helping willows and other riparian plants to regrow and support future beaver activity.
In May of 2024, we had the opportunity to see how the structures built in fall 2023 were performing during spring runoff. We were so excited to see that they were ponding water and soaking all the valley bottom soils. This soil storage of water is critical in maintaining flow into the hot and dry summer months, even if it just adds a few days to a week of water to the “savings account”, this can be the difference between going completely dry and staying wet between rain events. We’ll be back in the watershed in 2025 to build more BDAs and to make sure that the ones we have built already are functioning well and holding spring runoff.
In addition to LTPBR, we also completed riparian planting at several off-highway vehicle (OHV) crossings that were decommissioned in 2023 and replaced with new bridges and trail sections.
Preventing the spread of invasive fish species
In fall 2024, Freshwater Conservation Canada contracted AJM Environmental and Cascade Water Resources to survey the lower end of Trout Creek within the Public Land Use Zone and identify potential locations for a suitable location to implement a fish passage barrier. This is necessary in order to prevent invasion of the upper watershed by Rainbow Trout Oncorhynchus mykiss and Brook Trout Salvelinus fontinalis, which are both threats to the recovery and persistence of Westslope Cutthroat Trout in this watershed. Ensuring that these species do not colonize the watershed within the PLUZ is critical in enabling future reintroductions, without the need to remove these fish prior to. Several potential sites were identified, including a bedrock constriction which could potentially be enhanced to create an impassable barrier. We will continue investigating potential options and moving this important action forward.
Trail system improvements
No new trail system improvements were completed by Freshwater Conservation Canada in 2024, but we continued to work on planning for replacement of the lower Kingbolt Creek trail with a new truck bridge and road access to the range rider cabin along Kingbolt Creek, to ensure that grazing allotment holders can access their infrastructure safely and sustainably. We expect that the new bridge should be in place in late summer/early fall 2025. In addition, the Government of Alberta Recreation Management Team helped out to make some needed changes to the new trail section upstream of Minor Coulee Creek, which had one hill section that was overly steep and impassable when wet.
With a little help from our friends
None of the work we have done to date would be possible without financial and in-kind support from a long list of partners and funders. For 2024, the funders for project work along Trout Creek included grants from the Land Stewardship Center of Canada’s Watershed Stewardship Grant, the Alberta Conservation Association’s Conservation Community and Education Grant, the Government of Alberta’s Watershed Restoration and Resiliency Program, Environment and Climate Change Canada’s EcoAction Grant, and the Alberta EcoTrust Foundation. Additional funding support was provided by Peters and Co. AJM Environmental, and in-kind support from the MD of Ranchlands – who have been very helpful all throughout the project’s lifespan. The project benefited greatly from support from a number of partners who helped with workdays or provided in-kind support including Plains Midstream Canada, the Oldman Watershed Council, Cows and Fish, the GOA Rec Management Team, and the MD of Ranchlands.