Tue, 16 Apr 2024
Tags: Caribou / Fish & Wildlife / News

Announcing $7.5M for Conservation in B.C.

6-227 Restoring Whitebark Pine Ecosystems to Enhance Subalpine Bear Habitat - Smoke Mountain cone collection

The Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation is proud to release the 2024-25 approved project list.

Over $7.5 million in funding has been awarded to 123 projects that will benefit fish, wildlife, and their habitats across B.C.

Included in the list are the approved projects under the Fish & Wildlife Grant, Caribou Habitat Restoration Fund, and Quality Waters program, as well as the provincially-led Conservation Lands and Fisheries O&M programs.

3-251: Interior Fraser Wild Steelhead Conservation – Steelhead tagging for spawning population estimate in the Nicola watershed.

Projects include:

  • $91,500 to restore the wetland habitat at a former sawmill site in the heart of the salmonid migratory corridor for the watersheds of two major rivers in Comox Valley
  • $152,001 to capture and tag juvenile White Sturgeon in the Fraser River to improve understanding of distribution abundance, recruitment trends, and growth rates
  • $45,890 to analyze data on small mammal and vegetation communities in Thompson-Nicola grasslands to better manage BC’s threatened grassland ecosystems
  • $83,380 to enhance 112 hectares of elk winter range in Upper Kicking Horse Canyon
  • $47,700 to implement recommendations from the Middle and Upper Fraser Bull Trout Management Plan to support sustainable angling and long-term stock conservation
  • $37,909 to understand habitat use, movement ecology, and survival of Tawéi (Tlingit word for thinhorn sheep) near Atlin to support sustainable stewardship of the species
  • $183,906 for functional and ecological restoration techniques to add an additional 2,358 hectares to intact areas of habitat within the Klinse-Za caribou herd range
  • $30,480 for the restoration of riparian black cottonwood forests in the Kettle River watershed

7-540: Prescribed Burns for Wild Sheep Enhancement in Northeastern BC – Implementation of prescribed burn for Stone’s sheep habitat.

To see the list of HCTF-funded projects for 2024-25, click here (PDF download).

Please note that this list does not include Action, Capacity, or Community Grants, for which notifications will go out in the summer. Invasive Mussel Monitoring Grant applicants will be notified in May.

Update May 10th, 2024: The Approved Project List now includes 2024-25 Invasive Mussel Monitoring Grants, Highland Valley Enhancement Fund projects, and funding towards the Invasive Mussel Defense Program. There are now a total of 136 projects and over $7.9M in funding.

Wed, 4 Oct 2023
Tags: Caribou / caribou habitat restoration fund / chrf / News

Project Profile & Lessons Learned: Goldway Road Restoration

Goldway Road Restoration - Chu Cho Environmental LLP

In 2018 Chu Cho Environmental identified several candidate roadways for restoration within the Chase caribou herd range with input from forest licensees, caribou biologists, and Tsay Keh Dene Nation. In total, Chu Cho Environmental and Tsay Keh Dene Nation have now completed restoration work on 3 roads within the Chase caribou herd boundary since 2019. Collectively, these projects have been a part of the larger Chase Caribou Road Restoration Program (CCRRP), with the Goldway road being the most recent restoration project.

Planted Seedling – Chu Cho Environmental LLP

Sean Rapai of Chu Cho Environmental shares the challenges and lessons learned on this project including those around permitting, post-treatment monitoring and longer-term considerations.

Permitting: The historical presence of anadromous salmon in Johanson Creek, combined with the presence of bull trout and steelhead trout impacted the window for fording Johanson Creek with an excavator. It was necessary to submit an application to Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) with the proposed plan and timing window of the work. The Letter of Advice was eventually secured which indicated work could proceed as planned. Best practices were outlined as well as recommendations for the fording process. This proved challenging, but the project did receive approval from DFO.

Monitoring: Ecological restoration treatments could take five or more years to begin to show results. With monitoring, we are attempting to answer a long-term set of questions and return to the site in the years immediately following restoration. Monitoring can be very costly as assessing control treatments is often restricted to the use of a helicopter. Chu Cho Environmental investigated the feasibility of using remotely piloted aircrafts (drones) as a more cost-effective method of monitoring restored areas in the short-term. This method was explored for monitoring remote roadways and restored areas.

Drone-based monitoring: Based on recommendations from 2021, Chu Cho Environmental deployed drone-based remote-sensing surveys to monitor vegetation using derived NDVI indices. Data was collected to a resolution of 1 m2 and can be paired with future surveys to track vegetation establishment and growth along large stretches of the road. While the use of a drone as a monitoring tool in this restoration program is in the preliminary stages, the ease of data collection and results suggest this is a viable means of evaluating vegetation indices on pre and post restoration roadways.

Stability of ecological restoration treatments: Year one monitoring of the ecological restoration techniques used in the project showed strong persistence of these treatments. The rough-and-loose soil contouring was stable, intact, and holding water, and planted seedlings had a high survival rate.

Recontouring inhibits human access: Areas recontoured with the rough-and-loose treatment had the least evidence of use by humans, including those on horseback. Aggressive recontouring of roads at strategic locations may be considered a viable tool to discourage trail usage and eliminate all-terrain vehicle use.

Snow alters access by motorized vehicles: Snowmobile use of the road was observed when the snow had accumulated above restoration efforts (i.e., above height of felled trees and mounds). While the effect of such anthropogenic use has yet to be studied here, considerations may be required for future restoration efforts or access management restrictions on snowmobile use.

Functional restoration: Felled trees were intact, and it was observed that larger diameter trees felled from steep cut banks created better movement barriers. Conversely, smaller diameter trees felled for functional restoration did not provide as good of a visual and physical barrier and is suggested that when small diameter trees are the only available source, they are felled in stacks. High survival of planted seedlings, following mechanical site preparation, suggests that tree planting is likely to provide visual screening over the long term, and may represent a more effective long term means of functionally restoring these roadways.

The Goldway road lies within the range of the Chase caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) herd, which is considered by the federal government of Canada to be part of the Northern group of the Southern Mountain population of Woodland caribou. This herd is listed as threatened on Schedule 1 of the Species At Risk Act (SARA).

Tue, 27 Jun 2023
Tags: Caribou / caribou habitat restoration fund / chrf

Project Profile & Lessons Learned: Tweedsmuir Caribou Winter Range – Chelaslie Road Restoration

Group of caribou detected on Reconyx remote camera.

Directly east of Tweedsmuir Park, there is an area caribou utilize as their core low-elevation winter habitat and as a migration route between winter and summer habitat. It is currently heavily impacted by human-caused disturbance such as forest harvesting and associated roads. The BC Ministries of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship and of Forests have been working on a project that aims to benefit the Tweedsmuir-Entiako caribou (TEC) herd through restoration of linear disturbances in the Chelaslie migration corridor (CMC). The project includes many partners, including Cheslatta Carrier Nation and the Society for Ecosystem Restoration in Northern BC (SERN BC), working on the restoration of roads and fire guards that are no longer required. Over the 2021 and 2022 seasons, ecological and functional restoration treatments were applied to over 54 km of road and fire guard. An additional 22 km of road has been effectively deactivated through the treatment of access roads. Restoration efforts will continue in 2023, through machine work on legacy roads, planting of roads and wildfire guard, and monitoring.

Restoration activities incorporate ecological restoration, which includes site preparation and conifer planting to recover habitat suitable for caribou; and, functional restoration, which includes activities such as woody debris spread, tree felling, mounding, and berm creation. These barriers are intended to reduce line of sight and make roads more difficult to travel along, which is important to eliminate human access and reduce predator mobility. The project utilized vegetation surveys, assessments for mobility, trail cameras, drone imagery, and GPS collars to monitor the short- and long-term outcomes of restoration treatments on access, vegetation, caribou use, and use by other wildlife.

Reconyx photo of caribou bull on road 1A (treated in 2022)

Anne-Marie Roberts, Tweedsmuir Caribou Herd Program lead with the BC Ministry of Water, Lands and Resource Stewardship (WLRS) and Joanna Lee, BC Conservation Foundation (BCCF) contractor with WLRS share some lessons learned on the project so far.

Review of work to date: During the first year, the project was scoped out based on previous work and from projects in other areas of British Columbia and Western Canada. This allowed for beneficial streamlining of some of the work around restoration treatments and implementation development. Learnings from the initial year of the project also helped scope subsequent workplans, training, and reporting.

On Site Discussion: While this project utilized an experienced Project/Site manager on the machine work, a team site visit was held early before the machine work began to review implementation. Representatives from the BC Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship (Nadina Forest District + Skeena Region), Forest Carbon Initiative, Cheslatta Carrier Nation, and HCTF were in attendance and visited roads completed in previous years as well as roads to be completed in 2022 and had in-depth on-site discussions about restoration treatments and goals. This was an effective use of time to ensure that prescriptions were communicated and understood well by all involved. It also resulted in a better understanding from the machine operators that were newer to this type of project to know what the project was intending to achieve (i.e., plant-able spots, functional treatments aimed to reduce sightlines and minimize access and ease of movement).

Remote Cameras: On a more logistical note, cameras deployed in remote areas were a significant investment in time and money to deploy, check and process. Ensuring that cameras are protected as much as possible (bear boxes and possibly locks) is important to protecting the investment in that data.

Partners and Stakeholders: Working with First Nations and stakeholders is unique to each region and caribou herd, and it is essential to include inputs from different groups to this type of project. Adequate time must be set aside for meaningful input and to develop real partnerships for ongoing restoration. This will be important in the long-term implementation of restoration treatments. Through deep commitment to working together there has been significant contribution from First Nation partners to this project, caribou recovery, and in building capacity to support and lead components of this work.

Tue, 6 Jun 2023
Tags: Caribou / chrf

World Caribou Day 2023: Discover the Canadian Caribou Subspecies

Klinse-Za Caribou Herd – Mount Rochfort

Here in British Columbia on World Caribou Day we are thankful that our forests and mountains are still home to the Woodland subspecies of caribou, including Boreal, Northern and Southern mountain caribou.

For those living in the regions where caribou roam, these creatures are a lens into the health and connectivity of the overall ecosystem. They are both an umbrella species (their health indicates the health of the ecosystem as a whole) and indicator species (easily impacted by changes to their habitat). Caribou are also considered a cultural keystone species due to their immense importance to Indigenous peoples across Canada. This video by Chu Cho Environmental illustrates the deep cultural relationship between the Tsay Keh Dene people and Wedzih, the caribou:

All caribou in British Columbia are under threat of population declines from habitat loss and the altering and fragmentation of habitat. For many subpopulations habitat degradation has already taken a toll on individual herds as First Nations, environmental non-profits, teams from the Province of British Columbia and Government of Canada, and some industry partners work together to help restore or maintain populations that are threatened or endangered.

Arguably the most important part of recovering caribou populations is habitat protection and restoration. The Caribou Habitat Restoration Fund (CHRF) is proud to support the continued restoration of roads, seismic lines and other linear disturbances to help limit human and predator access into habitat of threatened herds. Click here to learn more about the projects we’re funding this year and here to subscribe to our newsletter (select “Caribou Habitat Restoration Fund grants”) for more information.

Wed, 22 Mar 2023
Tags: Caribou / News / Wildlife

Additions to our Caribou Program

As our Caribou Program expands, we have added two new roles to support growth and initiatives.

First, we are happy to welcome Jack Olson, Indigenous Inclusion Coordinator!

“My name is Jack Olson and I live in Kelowna. My original homeland territory is the Norway House Kino Sipi Cree Nation which is in the central region of Manitoba. I have a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Winnipeg with an Indigenous Studies major, along with an Indigenous Community Counseling Certificate from the University of Manitoba. My work experience includes several roles within Indigenous communities as education counselor, social worker, and environmental consultant. As I learn and familiarize myself with my role as Indigenous Inclusion Coordinator with HCTF, I’m grateful to be working closely with a dedicated group of professionals.

During the summer I like to spend weekends fishing and camping with family and friends. Although I do not engage in the sport of hunting waterfowl as when I lived in Norway House some years ago, I respect and support the choice of those who engage in and enjoy these time-honored outdoor activities.

Ekosani, Meegwetch … All my relations!”

Secondly, we are excited to have Lisa Wielinga join our Caribou Program! Lisa moves from HCTF Grants Officer to Caribou Program Officer and will be supporting Sophia and Jack on a number of initiatives and exciting plans for the program. Lisa holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Victoria, with a double major in Environmental Studies and Anthropology, as well as a Project Management Certificate from Mount Royal University. Her background includes experience within government, consulting, and non-profit organizations where she provided environmental outreach and project management support. Lisa is excited about this opportunity to support the conservation of caribou in British Columbia.

 

Wed, 15 Mar 2023
Tags: Caribou / Fish & Wildlife / News

Preliminary Approved Project List 2023-24

A preliminary list of HCTF approved projects for 2023-24 is now available.

Preliminary Approved Project List 2023-24

Projects included on this preliminary list have been approved in principle but may have reduced budgets or funding conditions. All applicants will receive official notification emails including HCTF Board and technical committee comments. For approved projects, these emails will include the grant amount and funding conditions (if applicable). Please note that HCTF staff cannot provide further information to you before the Notifications are issued.

Proponents of approved projects will receive a Conditional Grant Agreement. Please be aware that until both you and HCTF have reviewed, accepted and signed the Conditional Grant Agreement, there is no confirmation of funding and no legal commitment in place.

Congratulations to all successful proponents! To those applicants who were not funded this time, thank you for your interest. The next opportunity to apply for an HCTF Enhancement and Restoration, Stewardship or Caribou Habitat Restoration Grant will be Fall of 2023 (Deadline: Friday November 3, 2023).

How are Grant Applications Reviewed?

Each proposal undergoes a multi-level, objective technical review prior to final Board decisions. For more information on what reviewers look for when evaluating a proposal, see our Grant Apply page.