Hiking along an old logging path adjacent the Sea-to-Sky highway, it’s surprisingly easy forget the highway just 20 feet away. The trees and boulders surrounding you are effective in cutting out traffic noise. To fill the silence, a streamkeeper intermittently blows a whistle as loud as he can. “WE’RE HERE!” he shouts.
“So the bears don’t disturb us,” he explains
Easy-to-notice animals like killer whales or grizzly bears are often given some sort of protection by law, and people contemplate the most effective ways to save their species. They are assumed to be crucial contributors to the ecosystem and environment.
Smaller species – the food of large protected animals and therefore just as important to the ecosystem – are left unprotected from the outcomes of urbanization. The loss of herring from B.C. oceans is one notable example.
“We stumbled upon the herring project mostly by accident,” said Dr. Jonn Matsen co-chair of the Squamish Streamkeepers Society. “We found out they were spawning on pillars coated with creosote. Once we wrapped them [the pillars] up in plastic to prevent the toxin seeping through, and cloth, so the eggs stuck, the eggs started hatching and herring counts grew significantly.”
The difference was noticeable in B.C. coastal waters. Dolphins and other large sea animals were spotted, as they followed an important food source – herring – back to B.C. coastal waters.
Although the streamkeepers were successful in the ocean, generally their mandate is the protection of smaller streams and creeks that generally remain unnoticed by the majority of the population. They are easily forgotten and tend to get paved over.
If they don’t get buried, many streams and creeks in the Lower Mainland have been upset by the logging industry.
Logging has obvious detrimental effects on the environment from the loss of habitat it causes in forests. It is also detrimental to salmon populations, however, due to the steady stream of sawdust that logging creates and flows into streams and creeks.
Salmon spawn their roe in the gravel beds of streams with fast-running, cool water. The running water is necessary to provide a constant supply of oxygen as the eggs develop over a period of time. Sawdust, like any fine sediment, clogs the water and stops roe from obtaining the oxygen they need to develop.
“The problem isn’t that they did it once, but year after year the sawdust wiped out roe from the stream and effectively killed off entire salmon runs,” Matsen said.
As they rehabilitate the streams from the effects of the unrestricted logging of the past, the streamkeepers also combat issues that arise today. The Sea-to-Sky highway is surrounded by small creeks. When a stream or creek is paved over, the only requirement is that a culvert be placed under the highway so the water can still flow. Placing a culvert will keep the water flowing, but can still effectively harm natural habitat. In one instance, the smooth walls of the culvert did not have the same contours and damming effects that rocks and dirt naturally have and that create stabilized water levels.
“The water ran, but was too low for the salmon to get their tails under water,” Matsen said. “If their tails aren’t submerged, they can’t get the momentum they need to get to the other side of the stream to spawn.”
The culvert didn’t allow for salmon or trout to swim downstream, so they stopped using the creek to spawn. Once the streamkeepers lobbied for the government to install a baffle culvert, which keeps the water at a level the fish can pass through, the change was almost instantaneous. The fish came back.
Without the streamkeeper groups in B.C. monitoring streams and creeks around the province, many wildlife species would be lost and no one would notice the difference until the bears and whales stopped coming around, too.
