WYOMING — Since July 18, the Caribou-Targhee National Forest (CTNF) and Trout Unlimited (TU) have been busy completing restoration work on the North Fork of Tincup Creek.
The project has been using draft horses and hand crews to install log structures to improve stream health, floodplain connectivity and habitat for cutthroat trout and other native fish species on 2.1 miles of the degraded stream on CTNF lands.
The North Fork Tincup Creek project area is in a remote roadless area of the CTNF accessed via USFS Road #117 (Tincup / Bridge Creek Road), near Wayan, Idaho, and Freedom, Wyoming, in southeast Idaho.
The stream in the project area is currently too wide and downcut, with vertical eroding banks two to four feet in height. It has low fish densities due to poor instream habitat and is listed as water quality impaired by the Idaho Department of Water Quality as a result of excess sedimentation. Because it is in a roadless area, project partners opted for a “low-tech, process-based restoration” design strategy pioneered by researchers at the University of Utah, which calls for using low-cost, simple structures built from natural materials to mimic natural stream processes such as beaver activity and letting the water do the work.
“We saw this project as the perfect opportunity to try these low-tech, process-based restoration techniques for ourselves, since using heavy equipment would not be an option due to it being in a roadless area. We had to get creative to figure out how to get the work done, and luckily we were able to find skilled draft horse teams, a crew from the Montana Conservation Corps, and Forest Service staff to help us in our efforts,” said Lee Mabey, Forest Fisheries Biologist for the Caribou-Targhee National Forest.
Through the project, about 500 large trees are being installed in the degraded stream channel to restore floodplain connectivity and fisheries habitat. Trees felled by the Forest Service are being pulled to the stream and positioned by teams of draft horses, then pinned into place using wood posts installed by Montana Conservation Corps crew. Structures are designed to provide instream cover, increase scour rates, and capture sediment to raise the streambed elevation and reconnect the stream to its floodplain. Natural stream processes and dam-building activities of beaver are being relied upon to return the stream to a healthier state.
“I have been involved with over a dozen stream restoration projects at TU, and this is the first that I’m aware of that has been done by horses and by hand. It’s impressive to see these skills from a different era being used to benefit fish habitat and stream health. We’re grateful to all the project partners and contractors that are making this project possible,” said Leslie Steen, TU NW Wyoming Program Director.
The project is a follow-up to the large-scale, multi-phase Tincup Creek Stream Restoration Project that restored 5 miles of aquatic habitat in the Tincup Creek watershed from 2017 to 2020. It seeks to address similar issues of loss of habitat, degraded stream function, and impaired water quality, but with process-based techniques.
Visit the CTNF Facebook page and Jackson Hole Trout Unlimited Facebook page for photos and video footage of the draft horses at work.
