Alberta has shaken the blues and .... orange you glad we're in the rose of health?

In time for the weekend, something to think about ...

Well, we've done it this time - picked ourselves up, dusted ourselves off and made it to the polls in greater numbers than in the last 22 years. Premier-designate Rachel Notley could make the difference for some of the challenges our watershed is currently facing.

WPACs of Alberta (Watershed Planning and Advisory Councils) have an important role to play: to advise government. And we've been doing it a long time. Key pieces of research like the State of the Watershed Report and the Integrated Watershed Management Plans, as well as key input into the South Saskatchewan Rgional Plan have had much work  - and much hope - put into them.

It was interesting to note that both rural and urban Albertans want change and are willing to work together. Combining the orange and the rose will make a brighter future for everyone who lives, works and plays in our beautiful and unique Oldman watershed. (Suddenly Jayme Cabrera Lopez' photo of the sunrise at the top of ths blog seems serendipitously appropriate.)

We look forward to the support of both NDP and Wildrose MLAs to make things different - and to make them better.

Here's what our Executive Director, Shannon Frank, had to say about the recent election and its implications for watershed management and health .... you may need to adjust your speakers a little ... have a peek at this recent video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AAsJJ8-5QE <<< CLICK THIS LINK TO VIEW!!!

We'd love to hear your thoughts about this topic!

Native fish – our very own aquatic ‘canaries in a coal mine’

(Editor's Note: Why is your clean, clear, drinking water threatened? And how does it depend on fish? OWC's Planning Manager, Connie Simmons, explains exactly what's "fishy" in the headwaters. Your comments are, as always, most welcome.) 

The Headwaters Action Plan (HAP) is a key outcome of the Oldman Integrated Watershed Management Plan, and was developed with the input of key stakeholders and the public throughout 2013-14. The HAP developed targets, actions and recommendations for three indicators of headwaters health to focus efforts to effectively protect and maintain source waters and headwaters values.   

One of these three indicators provided direction for action related to fish - and not just any fish, but a focus on two native species that are now listed as ‘threatened’ by the Government of Alberta:  westslope cutthroat trout and bull trout.   

With the ‘threatened’ listing, come Recovery Plans and a legislated requirement to safeguard the species from further population decreases, and to protect and restore critical habitats to support and ensure their continued persistence and recovery.  Westslope Cutthroat Trout have an approved Recovery Plan, and a Recovery Plan for bull trout is currently being developed.   (See: http://esrd.alberta.ca/fish-wildliditfe/species-at-risk/   )

 Why focus on fish? 

Native fish need healthy source waters and headwaters to thrive,  and source water and headwaters integrity directly link to sustainability of healthy streams and rivers that provide us with high water quality and sufficient water quantity – a critical foundation for sustainable human communities and economic stability. 

The looming crisis with these two native trout species tells us that all is not well in the Oldman headwaters, or Alberta. 

Development and recreation pressures, habitat degradation, fragmentation and loss, invasive species incursion (i.e. competitive or hybridizing species such as rainbow trout), climate change, and angling pressure have created a perfect storm of issues that threaten the continued existence of these key native fish species in Alberta.   

This is our wake-up call – these native trout are truly our aquatic ‘canaries in a coal mine’ – telling us that all is not well, and that we need to pay attention, prioritize what to do, and then act with responsibility and solid scientific direction to ensure the continued persistence and flourishing of native trout in the strongholds of cold, clear mountain streams and lakes. 

 Our native trout – wild aquatic beauty in peril

 Westslope Cutthroat trout

Westslope cutthroat trout are listed as threatened by both the Government of Alberta and the Government of Canada.   In Canada, westslope cutthroat trout are native only to the Bow and Oldman River systems.  

Historically in the Oldman watershed, their populations extended from the high mountain creeks, rivers and lakes to as far as Lethbridge.  But - that was then, this is now.  WSCT have declined so precipitously in the last 50 years that they now are at around 5% of their former population numbers, and these remnant populations have retracted to the small and scattered streams in the highest reaches of the Rocky Mountain tributaries of the Oldman River.  

Human activities were and continue to be the greatest threat to the persistence of WSCT remnant populations in Alberta.  These activities include the historical introduction of invasive species (ie: stocking of rainbow trout hybridize with WSCT and reduce or exterminate pure strain populations); development/industrial pressures that adversely impact or destroy habitat; and consumption (angling).

This alarming trend is further exacerbated by the looming issue of climate change, when projected mean temperatures in summer of many streams, especially in lower elevation streams and lakes, will rise to a point that WSCT cannot continue to exist.   High mountain streams with intact forests and riparian areas provide the foundation for the clear, cold, connected and complex aquatic systems that support WSCT.  

If we want to have WSCT in the future, there is an immediate need to take greater care of these important remnant habitats – to protect, rehabilitate and restore, and to manage adverse and cumulative impacts in these mountain headwaters areas.

 Bull trout

Bull trout were listed as a threatened by the Government of Alberta in 2012.   The status of bull trout is also currently under review by the Government of Canada.  A Recovery Plan for bull trout is now being prepared to guide the recovery of bull trout in Alberta.   

Bull trout occur in all of the major watersheds of the eastern slopes in Alberta, but have experienced significant reductions in both range and numbers, including the loss of some populations. Historically, bull trout were estimated to live in approximately 24,000 stream kilometres in Alberta, but are now down to an estimated 16,000 kms.   This is a 33% reduction in the extent of their historical range.

Bull trout in southern Alberta watersheds have had the greatest losses, including the Oldman, Bow and Red Deer rivers.  Bull trout populations in the Oldman watershed have been decreasing due to increasing cumulative impacts of industrial and recreation activities in their historic range, including logging, gas exploration and extraction, off-highway vehicles use, livestock grazing and random access camping.

  Recovery of bull trout will require conservation of healthy aquatic ecosystems, restoration and protection of degraded habitats, and the adoption of disturbance thresholds that will not be exceeded.

 What do we need to do for native trout?

As a first step, Albertans need to be aware that the populations of native trout are in trouble and that action is needed to ensure healthy headwaters and source water native fish habitat.  As a sharp lesson about the nature of cumulative effects that degrade native fish habitat and population persistence, Lorne Fitch put it most succinctly:

"Farmers, miners, off highway vehicle users, roughnecks, homeowners, politicians and a cast of thousands have devastated Alberta’s fish populations without ever catching or frying a single fish. Instead, large numbers of fish, populations of fish, and watersheds of fish were killed through habitat alterations, loss of critical habitats, water withdrawals, and pollution. It has been a death by a thousand cuts, not a thousand hooks. Individually there was no malice, spite or even intention – only the ignorance of fish ecology and cumulative effects."

Lorne Fitch (excerpt from essay ‘Two Fish, One Fish, No Fish: Alberta’s Fish Crisis’)

If we are able to secure healthy, productive headwaters and source water habitat for native fish, we are also helping to secure healthy and productive headwaters and source waters for all who need water in the Oldman watershed.   

In addition to raising public awareness, a concerted effort to effectively manage cumulative development/use impacts, provide excellent conservation information to public and stakeholders, and work to address threats to the continued persistence of native trout is greatly needed in the Oldman headwaters.  

The OWC Headwaters Action Team and partners are starting to address some of these concerns this summer (more on the Team and partnerships is coming in a future Blog!).    Recreation user engagement programs in Dutch Creek will share information about critical habitat for westslope cutthroat trout and bull trout, and engage recreationists to seek solutions that will would help ensure continued native trout persistence.  

Trout Unlimited (Oldman chapter) has taken the initiative to begin to work on riparian restoration and sedimentation issues in Hidden Creek – a sub-watershed just north of Dutch Creek and home to bull trout and westslope cutthroat trout.   The Alberta Conservation Association is working on a more complete inventory of westslope cutthroat trout in the upper Oldman headwaters area, and will be doing population assessments in Dutch Creek, Hidden Creek and White Creek in 2015.   Cows and Fish are working with the OWC to inventory riparian areas and flag areas that need focused restoration work in the form of restoration, and engagement of users to mitigate further impacts.  South Saskatchewan Regional Plan sub-regional initiatives are underway with the Linear Footprint Management Plan and Recreation Management Plan for the Livingston and Porcupine Hills areas.   

All of these initiatives are greatly needed, but we need a focused approach to preserving and extending critical habitat for native trout as an important iconic species, and a marker of healthy, productive headwaters and source waters in the Oldman watershed and beyond.   

Bull trout - at home in cold, clear, complex and connected high mountain streams and lakes

Connie Simmons

Planning Manager

OWC's Planning Manager Connie Simmons on ... PLANS ... & ACTION!!!

(Editor's note: Thanks to John Stoesser of the Pincher Creek Echo for this article - and for championing a healthy watershed).

Around 75 conservationists, ranchers and people interested in the area's watersheds crowded into the Twin Butte Community Hall for the Nature Conservancy of Canada's 10th annual Eat and Greet evening recently.

Early in the evening jokes were made that the huge turnout was thanks to the delicious catering from Jeny and Phil Akitt of the Twin Butte Mexican Restaurant, but once dinner was over attention was focused on riveting presentations by members of the Oldman Watershed Council, the Waterton Biosphere Reserve Association and Cows and Fish.

The Nature Conservancy of Canada's 10th annual Eat and Greet at the Twin Butte Community Hall was chock full of information about the area's watersheds on Friday, Feb. 6, 2015. Representatives from the Oldman Watershed Council, Cows and Fish and the Waterton Biosphere Reserve Association spoke to the crowd. From left to right: Jenel Bode, Anne Stevick, Connie Simmons, Jen Jenkins, Tony Bruder, Wonnita Andrus, Kristi Stebanuk and Lorne Fitch. John Stoesser photo/QMI Agency.

The theme of the evening was protecting the headwaters and OWC planning manager Connie Simmons dove right into an update on the organization's Headwaters Action Plan and Dutch Creek Pilot Project.

"It's the doing that's so important," Simmons said. "We're going to be talking about collaborative partnerships and that's really where we have to get going."

The Oldman Watershed Council is a registered charity and one of 11 watershed planning and advisory councils in the province. They work under Alberta's Water for Life strategy.

"This is the way folks can actually be part of watershed management and planning and doing," Simmons said, noting that while the group receives some funding from the government they also raise exterior money.

The OWC studies water quality, water quantity and, most important to them, the health of aquatic ecosystems while also creating watershed health assessments and providing recommendations to any levels of government that makes decisions.

"We hope that they listen and take that information into consideration," Simmons said. "But most important we enable, and hope to enable change. Change is basically, education, engagement, encouragement in this great watershed community of the whole Oldman basin."

After creating a vision, state of the watershed report, a "10,000 foot" watershed view, risk assessment and priorities, the OWC will focus on studying water quality and emerging contaminants throughout the entire basin.

"It's daunting, it's very daunting," Simmons said. "So we're definitely going to need a lot of help from communities and community members."

Approximately up 90 per cent or more of the water that leaves the Oldman River originates in the headwaters region, which are located west of Highway 22 and extend south from Chain Lakes down into Glacier Park in Montana.

"I know it's an iconic landscape, very important to all of us and we care about it deeply," Simmons said. "It is so important... we have to take care of this. It's really an important region."

The OWC has combined science such as cumulative impact mapping and local input to create a plan for protecting the headwaters. "We didn't just do science," Simmons said. "We also did a lot of work with local knowledge. That's listening to you and the communities and it's absolutely important. So it wasn't just (science) it was a marriage between the two."

Some of the priorities that came out of the public meetings were fish populations, invasive species and linear features. "We want to explore options for recreation user fees, to fund enforcement, education and stewardship projects," said Simmons. "I can't underscore enough how every single community we talked to, when talking about impacts on the watershed, said, 'What are we going to do about the recreational pressures. We have to something but we have no enforcement for that." "The headwaters is fair game... they shoved everything down to this corner of the world and now we've got, oh my goodness, a bit of a management problem," she added.

Simmons showed a map of the Dutch Creek area where unregulated stream crossings are interspersed with bull trout habitat. The area is part of OWC's new Adopt A Watershed program."It's beautiful in there but it has pretty much every cumulative effect you can imagine. So that's why we chose it," said Simmons. This coming summer their plan is to make a difference on the ground in Dutch Creek and also turn that into a story and a guide for others interested in protecting their watersheds. "What can we start to do... to still provide good recreational experiences for folks while also looking after watershed health. It's a tall order but we have to start somewhere," Simmons said. "The recovery plans seem to be dead in the water, pardon the pun. So maybe they need a little kick-start," she said in terms of protecting bull and cutthroat trout.

Next up was Kristi Stebanuk, the new riparian resource analyst for Cows and Fish. She presented three digital stories, narrated slideshows, to the audience.

Jen Jenkins, a local rancher and communications coordinator for the WBRA gave an update on the group's new website and upcoming projects. 

Tony Bruder, with the WBRA's carnivore working group, briefed the room on preventing livestock predation including the dead stock program.

Award-winning biologist Lorne Fitch finished off the evening with his presentation, Grandfather's Trout - Grandkid's Memories, a slideshow and accompanying stories of what fishing was like in southwest Alberta at the turn of the 20th Century. "We often look into that fog called tomorrow and we often don't turn our heads over our shoulders and look back onto the path called yesterday," Fitch said. "So I thought I would take you on a little retrospective journey throughout the watersheds."

According to archived records, NWMP in the Calgary and Pincher Creek areas noticed a difference in fish populations from 1876 to 1890. Fitch showed photos of anglers hauling over 40 pounds over cutthroat and bull trout from areas where they do not exist today.

"We need to be reminded of where we were in the past and what the potential is for the future," he said. "Because wildlife, including native fish, are part of our myths, they're part of our history, they're part of our lives, they are part of our landscapes. But they're also a measuring stick of the health of our landscape."

"When you have cutthroat and bull trout in your watersheds, it is the litmus test, it is the gold seal of water quality," Fitch, a founder of Cows and Fish, said. "Unfortunately these critters can slip to become only part of our memory and even worse, even worse, we may forget them altogether. That's why we need to keep these landscape albums alive. To remind us where we were and where we could be and where we need to be."

john.stoesser@sunmedia.ca

OWC January 2015 E-Newsletter

To view January's E-Newsletter, click here

OWC November 2014 E-Newsletter

To view November's E-Newsletter, click here