If you’ve ever had a bull trout on a fly rod, you understand the amazing towing capacity of this North American member of the salmonid family. While there are no fish Olympics, if there were, bull trout would be contenders for the powerlifter podium. A species of char, it is possible that bull trout earned their moniker due to the fact that they are as strong as an ox.

But as brawny as it can be, the bull trout is extremely susceptible to habitat loss, making it a bellwether for water quality. It requires cold water temperatures, as well as extremely clean and clear water and gravels for spawning and rearing. Bull Trout also need a complex habitat of riffles, deep pools, refuge from high flow velocity, and cover. Because it is more sensitive to changes in its environment than other salmonid species, this fish is a good gauge of the condition of a watershed: if the bull trout population is declining, it indicates that the waterbody is in need of restoration.

On November 8, 2015, a crisp but gorgeous fall day, a group of community stewards volunteered for a Friends of the Forest® volunteer restoration project to help out the bull trout in Goat Creek on the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest. After a long bumpy drive up a winding dirt road, the volunteers went on a short site tour and then put on their gloves to get to work mulching and caging a hundred newly-planted native trees and shrubs in two riparian areas. This work helped to complete a restoration project to benefit this remarkable fish.

During the site tour, led by Gene Shull, the Methow Valley Ranger District Fisheries Biologist, Shull explained the threats to bull trout, which have been listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act since 1999. Historical management practices drastically reduced Bull trout habitat.

Instream wood, which is important for complexity, has been reduced due to a variety of actions:

• “stream cleaning” removed logs and woody material from the channel;
• riparian timber harvest reduced trees available to naturally fall into the stream; and
• construction of roads over streams with culverts for stream passage blocked the natural transport of wood from upstream stretches of a watershed.

These practices have also added to in-stream sediments, further impairing water quality. Rising stream temperatures in lower elevation streams are also threatening the range of the bull trout’s habitat, which in the U.S. is now confined to Washington, Oregon, Idaho, western Montana, and one northern Nevada watershed.

This work is part of the NFF’s Treasured Landscapes, Unforgettable Experiences campaign and the volunteers efforts completed a project to restore one mile of Goat Creek’s critical spawning and rearing habitat.

Shull explained that with its headwaters in northcentral Washington, just south of the Canadian border in the Pasayten Wilderness, the icy cold waters of Goat Creek support a genetically distinct population of bull trout. With no downstream barriers to fish passage, the creek also welcomes home an occasional anadromous bull trout, and hosts visiting migratory bull trout, which travel up to the pristine upper reaches of this stream and add to the genetic diversity of the resident population. Shull described that maintaining and/or restoring critical habitat like Goat Creek, conserving genetic diversity, and providing opportunities for genetic exchange are all critical steps for bull trout survival.

After the tour, the volunteers went to work and collectively donated over thirty five hours to repair two riparian areas. First, they carried and spread wood chips around the bases of the new native plantings to slow moisture evaporation and moderate soil temperature. Then, after a lesson in cage-making by Rob Crandall of Methow Natives, the volunteers built wire enclosures around each plant to protect them from browsing cattle and wildlife.

This work is part of the NFF’s Treasured Landscapes, Unforgettable Experiences campaign and the volunteers efforts completed a project to restore one mile of Goat Creek’s critical spawning and rearing habitat.

The Goat Creek project also included:

• adding instream large woody material to add complexity,
• eliminating remnants of old non-system logging skid trails (including one that crossed the creek and occasionally received unauthorized vehicle use), and
• building a buck and rail fence to protect the restored habitat.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Methow Salmon Recovery Foundation partnered with the NFF and the Forest Service on the project.

Project funding was provided by the National Forest Foundation, the Washington RCO Salmon Recovery Funding Board, the Gordon and Betty Moore Trust, Patagonia, and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. The Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service each provided an in-kind match. For additional information about this project, please contact Dayle Wallien at [email protected] or 206-832-8280.