Coastal Cutthroat Trout as Sentinels of Lower Mainland Watershed ...

55YMCA Creek 2881 0 2881 1210 115 10Langdale Creek 1526 0 1526 91 91 100Chaster Creek 1132 0 1132 475 45 9Total 593659 175057 768716 670725 157343Mean 18631 4371 231 SD 33106 7128 22Meanagri/suburban 32016 6434 20Mean urban 4839 1395 29Mean coastal 5887 3740 64be utilized to prioritize habitat protection/management and fisheries management,particularly those related to highly valued sea-run cutthroat stocks. Of note among thesestreams, as few as five key stream systems accounted for the 61% of cutthroat productionin 1979, and their watersheds and lower reaches are all under varying degrees ofdevelopmental land use and water quantity/quality pressure. In order of productionimportance they ranked as follows:• Nicomen Slough nursery streams: water, suburban and forest land use• Nathan Creek: agricultural water quality and suburban land-use issues• Hatzic Slough nursery streams: urban to suburban land use• Dakota Creek: road and land use in lower reaches; forestry in upper reaches• Oulette Creek: road and land use in lower reaches; forestry in upper reachesTable 5. Dominant sea-run cutthroat nursery streams (> 2,000 parr) and estimatedpercent parr abundance in the Lower Mainland Region from Agassiz to Gibsons area.Geographic Area Nursery Stream Parr Abundance % of Total ParrMud Bay/Crescent Serpentine River6,713 5.0BeachNicomekl River8,116 6.1Lower FraserMainlandLittle Campbell RiverSalmon RiverNathan CreekNicomen SloughHatzic SloughAlouette RiverDeBoville SloughCoquitlam River- HoyCapilano RiverOulette CreekDakota Creek2,0086,26022,44734,88613,7925,0513,7504,4972,08611,30913,0561.54.716.826.010.33.82.83.41.68.49.7Total LowerMainland 133,971 85.1Some streams, such as Salmon and Little Campbell rivers, were of lesser relativeimportance, probably because of dominance by steelhead in these streams, asdocumented in Rempel et al. (1984) in the Little Campbell River. Since the extensive