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

73places protection of higher quality habitats as first priority in restoration planning (Roniet al. 2002). Watershed-based fish sustainability plans must be largely compiled as briefwatershed summaries to ensure workable/useable products that set fish-related watershedpriorities.Management Strategy 2: Habitat Protection via Land Acquisitions of CriticalCutthroat HabitatsAt several cutthroat streams in the Fraser Valley, there are small critical nursery areas,often located on alluvial fans or within groundwater recharge reaches at the base of somehill slopes or mountains. Many of these streams are threatened by agricultural or urbanpractices, which in some cases may include periodic invasive dredging and riparianalterations. A primary example is at mid-McCallum Ditch at Mountain Slough, where avery small mountain creek and ditch on an alluvial fan supports about 150 adult cutthroatand about 1,000 juvenile cutthroat (as well as coho salmon). The nursery habitat is 1-2 mwide over a distance of 100 m of stream and 200 m of ditch on a sandy alluvial fan aboveagricultural fields. In this example, the purchase of about a hectare of land would protectthe primary nursery habitat. Other examples of potential land purchases for cutthroathabitat conservation are Elk Creek at Hope Slough and Nicomen Creek at NicomenSlough.Land purchases through the Habitat Conservation Trust Fund (HCTF) for conservation ofthese critical nursery habitats would ensure they are protected and preserved.Furthermore, once secured for conservation, those nursery habitats already damaged bypast agricultural and land clearing impacts could be restored. What makes this strategynecessary and urgent is that these cutthroat nursery areas are at considerable risk offurther agricultural or future urban impacts. Riparian land acquisition is a viable optionfor conservation because these land purchases would be small, typically involvingsloping alluvial riparian lands of marginal/poor agricultural capability and lowagricultural market values per unit area. Purchases would be similar to lands purchasedfor wildlife conservation throughout the province, where most HCTF land acquisitionfunding is currently directed. Some of these lands could be managed as municipal parks,thus conserving their aquatic values, while also providing local aesthetic hiking areas ofecological interest. Alternatively, conservation covenants could be purchased from landowners at a market value per hectare that would evolve over time based on the initialmarket transactions.Prioritized actions required by the Ministry of Environment are: (1) precise identificationof these critical cutthroat-coho nursery fans and groundwater recharge segments ofriparian lands; (2) discussions with representatives of the Agricultural Land Reserve; (3)discussions with municipalities regarding land deposition, subject to land owner interestin sale of specific small parcels of private land; (4) legal land description and status; and(5) negotiation of purchase agreements with land owners subject to availability ofconservation funding.