Habitat Restoration Effectiveness Monitoring in the Deschutes & John Day Basins

Declining trends in certain salmonid populations, particularly spring Chinook salmon and bull trout, have been observed in Reservation streams over the last two decades. These declines are believed to be the cumulative result of a number of factors. As part of the greater effort to mitigate these deleterious effects and reverse the damage to local salmonid populations, the CTWSRO Fisheries Habitat Program has been tasked with developing and implementing a comprehensive watershed restoration strategy for both the reservation lands and ceded lands of the John Day Basin. These strategies are centered around completing in-stream and riparian habitat improvement projects to restore ecosystem function and create key environmental conditions and features necessary to support both anadromous and resident salmonids through all of their freshwater life history stages. Habitat restoration effectiveness monitoring is a vital component of the watershed restoration strategies. Such monitoring will answer key questions identified in project-specific monitoring plans regarding projects and inform future restoration decisions.



WS #1: Shearer Falls:

Tribal staff will creel Warm Springs tribal fishermen from April to June and August to October 2024.



WS #2: Fox Creek Watershed Restoration:

The Fox Creek Watershed Restoration Project, located on a tributary to the North Fork John Day River, is a large-scale habitat restoration effort consisting of several restoration objectives. PCSRF effectiveness monitoring funding will go towards the completion of post-project monitoring data collection consisting of:

• Mark-recapture electrofishing surveys of steelhead populations in four project (treated) and four control (untreated) reaches

• Produce high-resolution orthoimagery via unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) at two restoration reaches for monitoring vegetation and floodplain connection. Vegetation monitoring conducted via UAV will consist of constructing digital elevation models using aerial imagery and structure-from-motion analysis. These models will be used in conjunction with LiDAR data to quantify vegetation maturity via metrics such as percent canopy coverage over a threshold height and overall vegetative volume. These efforts compliment other non-PCSRF funded vegetation monitoring efforts which seek to describe vegetation species composition and basal coverage. UAV imagery is generally collected without benchmarks.



WS #3: Middle Fork John Day River, MFFCA Habitat:

The CTWSRO acquired the 785-acre Forest Conservation Area (MFFCA) in 2002, which lies at the historic core of Chinook and steelhead rearing habitat, as well as Chinook spawning habitat. CTWS performed its first large-scale restoration project (Vincent to Caribou Phase I) within the MFFCA consisting of the placement of dozens of large wood structures, incorporated four Beaver Dam Analogs, thousands of riparian plantings, and an assortment of other habitat enhancement features. The CTWSRO plans to continue these restoration efforts in 2024 with the Caribou Creek Reconnection Project as well as the Oxbow Phase 6 Restoration project. The timing of this project is unique in that it allows monitoring staff to leverage a robust BACI monitoring design by providing a full three years of pre-project data collection – which is a rare opportunity in restoration effectiveness monitoring. PCSRF effectiveness monitoring funding will go towards supplementing the completion of pre and post-project monitoring data collection consisting of:

• Mark-recapture surveys of salmonid populations in five reaches to gather baseline information on seasonal salmonid movement, reach use, migration, and survival in treatment and control reaches.

• Periodic (3x/year) mobile PIT-tag detection to assess seasonal and reach scale movements of salmonids.

• Produce high-resolution orthoimagery via UAV at two restoration rea

The CTWSRO Fisheries Habitat Program’s comprehensive watershed management strategy will benefit target salmonid species (Chinook salmon, steelhead, and bull trout) by: 1) directly generating vital spawning and rearing habitat; 2) directly mitigating deleterious environmental effects (e.g. reduce thermal loading through riparian enhancement, increase and sustain flow through floodplain and groundwater reconnection, etc); and 3) resorting ecosystem processes and function. (For specific expected benefits of individual projects, see section directly above.) Habitat restoration effectiveness monitoring will be key in assessing the performance of restoration efforts and in guiding the implementation of future projects. This will maximize realized benefits to targeted salmonids and ensure that restoration resources and efforts are executed as efficiently as possible and maximize positive results.