Forest Fish Project

Rationale for the Forest Fish Project

The combination of site specificity (seepage) and brook trout spatial ecology presents a challenge to forestry managers because both aspects push planning processes beyond site-specific considerations. Although groundwater discharge appears as upwelling sites in lakes and streams or small groundwater-dominated headwater streams, the associated groundwater recharge area is related to landscape features, such as surficial geology, at a sub-watershed level. Current guidelines designate protected areas only around lakes and streams (see photo below) and do not address protection of recharge areas. There has been very little research on the impact of forest management activities within groundwater recharge areas on seepage rates, and any disruption to the process poses a risk to brook trout populations. A better-documented risk to brook trout populations is the current lack of protection of groundwater-dominated headwater streams that do not appear on OBMs. Research has shown that these streams are important to both lake and stream dwelling brook trout populations, particularly for spawning and habitat for young fish. We require a better ability to predict the location of these streams in order to protect them from physical disturbance.

We believe the broad landscape characteristics that are functionally linked to the ecology of brook trout in streams and lakes at the larger watershed scale, as well as the finer site-specific scale, can be more effectively combined in timber management guidelines for the long-term protection and sustainability of this species. Current timber management guidelines are more restrictive in operations allowed in protected areas around ‘cold’ water streams compared to ‘warm’ water streams. However, the 'cold' designation does not change the dimensions of the protected area for the purpose of groundwater protection for the sustainability of brook trout populations. Our proposal is to move away from the current conceptual model that is defined exclusively at a fine scale and applied in a site-specific manner and move towards a watershed approach that recognizes the hydrological processes that drive brook trout distribution and survival. Improved understanding of the ecology of brook trout within a hydrological framework therefore would provide a more defensible protected area designation for protection of aquatic ecosystems when planning for timber operations. The benefits from this approach will be important to the forest industry. First, designation of protected areas will be based on real hydrological processes that affect brook trout rather than arbitrary designations that currently determine buffer strip location and width. Second, this approach for protected area designation will become more precise as technology improves our ability to determine the boundaries of critical landscape processes. Third, placing protected areas in locations that are critically important for sustainability of brook trout  (groundwater discharge and recharge zones) potentially opens areas for timber harvest that are now reserves in the current more-generalized protected area designations.