The Slocan Valley focal area was added in Year 5 of Kootenay Connect Priority Places. Highlights from Year 5 (2023-24) & Year 6 (2024-25) are listed below.
Year 6 Highlights (2024-25)
Despite scheduling and resource constraints due to extensive wildfire activity in the Slocan throughout the summer of 2024, all on-the ground restoration sites plantings were completed in 2024 in accordance with Year 5 planting plans. Priority was placed on plantings, watering and maintaining protective barriers. Procurement of trees and shrubs required was in place prior to the wildfires, allowing restoration activities to be scheduled in and around wildfire activity and access to site. Knowledge sharing and site tours with Indigenous communities, funders and regulatory stakeholders is deferred to 2025.
Year 5 Highlights (2023-24)
For Year 5 of the Kootenay Connect Project, the main activities for all projects were dedicated to completing on-the-ground field work, site specific restoration assessments and extensive analysis of existing knowledge bases, species and maps for the Slocan Watershed. This approach provided the necessary landscape context for the conservation of the species, wildlife corridors and habitats in the Slocan River Valley. With Year 5 as the starting point, the species and ecosystem resource team approached this initial year of planning from a Slocan Watershed perspective to rationalize the focus areas within the Slocan River Valley and tailor the work effort. In simple terms, this watershed view permits the SAR/SEI work remaining to take into account the interconnectivity of all ecosystems and scale the detailed on-the-ground study to unique and biodiversity hotspots. Camera and bird recorders were deployed to capture species activity levels for various habitat locations.
Black cottonwood floodplains perform critical ecological functions in healthy watersheds, as they are the interface between aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems and integral to watershed hydrology. Mature cottonwood forests adjacent to rivers are biodiversity hotspots that provide the greatest diversity of habitat for the most species in the valley. Therefore, protecting and enhancing existing black cottonwood ecosystems and restoring degraded areas in the Slocan Valley is one of the most important conservation actions that can be undertaken to benefit the greatest number of species over time. We are proposing to restore and enhance two crown land sites on the Slocan River: Perry Bridge (north and south) and Oxbow Island. Both sites are situated on active low and mid-bench floodplains including roughly 2.5km of shoreline and 13.8 ha of land. We are also working with a landowner to restore several hectares of riparian area on private land along a Slocan River side channel just south of Lemon Creek, which will be done in conjunction with in-stream fish habitat restoration work.
This map shows the study area of the Slocan Watershed, which encompasses 343,099 hectares (ha) including Slocan River, Slocan Lake, and numerous large drainages such as Little Slocan River, Lemon Creek, Wilson Creek, Bonanza Creek, Enterprise Creek, and Silverton Creek, as well as Little Slocan Lakes, Summit Lake and Wilson Lake.
