West Coast salmon habitat restoration earns financial boost, support toward completion

The Pacific Salmon Foundation is helping push a major salmon habitat restoration project near Tofino over the finish line with $100,000 in financial support.

ƛaʔuukʷiʔatḥ (Tla-o-qui-aht) First Nation has been leading the recovery of a salmon watershed at Tranquil Creek, in partnership with Redd Fish Restoration Society.

“We’re really excited. This is one of the bigger projects we’ve ever taken on and having it properly and thoroughly funded means we don’t cut corners. We don’t have to do things less than we intended,” says Redd Fish restoration biologist, Tom Balfour.

The multi-million-dollar project is in its eighth and final year of work. The groups are addressing historical impacts of forestry by recreating necessary log jams for salmon.

“That’s been a restoration technique for a long time, but the difference for us here is working at a very larger scale,” says Balfour. “At the end of this project, we’re going to put over a thousand second-growth cedar conifers, cedar spruce hemlocks, into this river just replacing a process that was lost.”

According to Pacific Salmon Foundation, the project has restored more than 40 hectares of riparian habitat, planted 800 trees and installed 41 log jams. There are another 18 engineered log jams that are needed.

“Around the world, people are working hard to save and restore wild salmon,” says PSF CEO and president, Michael Meneer, in a news release. “These fish – both Pacific and Atlantic – need our help. By working together, we can raise awareness for the challenges wild salmon face and help drive meaningful change.”

Balfour says the new funding will help address some unexpected financial hurdles – such as harsh winter weather eroding logging roads, which cost more money to maintain to access the site.