Successful Applicant:
Richmond Bay Watershed Association Inc.
Award:
$8,865
Project Title:
Improving Watershed Resilience through Diversity
Project Summary:
Healthy stream and riparian zones play a key role in healthy wildlife communities and the efforts carried out on the Little Trout River, Richmond and the Ellis River, Wellington all weave together to help build resilience in the watersheds ecosystems so that wildlife may be better prepared to respond to the coming pressures of a rapidly changing climate.
Activities included enhancing a diversity of habitats and food resources for fish and wildlife by planting a mixture of native hardwoods, shrubs, and flowering plants, installing bat houses, creating brush pile habitat, restoring one large holding pool for older year brook trout, ensuring aquatic species access to cold water springs, and installing in-stream scattered rock and log structures. Efforts also were carried out to remove and manage invasive species on two properties.
In our efforts to rehabilitate degraded aquatic habitats including connectivity, eight kilometers of stream maintenance and restoration was completed which also included using natural material to construct and install structures to help trap silt and armor stream banks, selective removal of blockage and removing auto tires from the stream bed. Access trail maintenance and development, beaver management and brook trout populations and spawning surveys were also achieved with this project.