TU’s Watershed program work in the Pacific Northwest (primarily western Oregon and Washington) utilizes on-the-ground strategies and actions to improve habitat health and function for wild and native trout and salmon species (resident and sea-run). Projects typically start small and add connected pieces within a given watershed or range, building toward stewardship on a true watershed scale wherever possible. Restoring damaged habitat and maintaining healthy habitat usually provides the foundation, but reconnecting islands and types of functioning habitat with previously connected fish populations across a watershed scale (or broader) whenever possible is just as essential. As with just about any locale in the lower 48 , this seemingly simple, singular set of goals requires comparably complex means to achieve it with an often dizzying overlay of land ownership, habitat impacts and conditions, management paradigms, development pressures and politics. TU and our partners must always be alert for collaboration and innovation, and to do so with adaptability, determination and patience. Moreover, habitat action alone is rarely, if ever, a standalone. Habitat actions are most effective by far when sustained through consideration and participation from surrounding communities, along with sound policies, management and stewardship of area natural resources.
Learn More:
Oregon – North Coast: Ecola Creek Habitat Assessment [1]
[2]
Links:
[1] http://www.tu.org/sites/www.tu.org/files/documents/Ecola_assessment_5_2012_short_final (2).pdf
[2] http://www.tu.org/watersheds/pilchuck/