President’s Message – Fall 2014

Chapter and member activity has generally been slow this past year largely due to the lack of a majorproject. Activity on our primary initiative in the Town of Orangeville has come to ahalt until works on Mill Creek are implemented.

In response TU-GCC is rapidly developing with its partners a new plan that willcontribute to improving brook trout habitat in the Upper Credit River ConservationArea. Our goal here is to not only improve habitat conditions but provide moreopportunities for our members to get actively involved in stream restoration work.

Our stewardship activities in coldwater conservation in the Credit River watershed have not goneunrecognized, and we continue to play an important role. This past year TU-GCC participated in thefollowing:• CVC Credit River Strategic Visioning Workshop• CVC 60th Year Anniversary Celebration• CVC Belfountain Complex Management Plan – Stakeholder Advisory Committee• CVC 2014 Stewardship Forum

As of October 15th our Ontario Programs Manager Silvia D'Amelio became TUC's CEO. After servingfor almost five years, Jeff Surtees the Chief Executive Officer and Corporate Counsel stepped downfrom his role with Trout Unlimited Canada to pursue a Master's degree in Natural Resources Energyand Environmental Law.

The Chapter’s monthly Board meetings have moved back to CVC offices. Let’s see if we can get somemore members out to these meetings.

Sadly, I must close the president message again with news of our dear friendLen Yust passing away. Len was a long time member and advocate of TroutUnlimited. His eight years plus tenure as TU’s Ontario Director boosted theawareness for river and water quality improvement to a level previouslyunknown in the province.

http://tuctkc.blogspot.ca/2014/04/len-yust.html

Credit River Brook Trout Recovery Strategy (by Brian Greck)

The Chapters activity towards developing a brook trout recovery has been slow. The initial plan wasto develop a strategy which would integrate with that of the MNR and CVC. To date informationtowards developing this strategy by the agencies has been limited. In July MNR staff conductedfisheries monitoring on the West Credit River in order to gain some local insight on the effects ofintroduced species on resident and migratory trout and salmon. CVC’s compilation and interpretationof their monitoring data as it relates to brook trout declines has also not been provided.

TU–GCC will continue to discussion with CVC and MNR their plans for brook trout recovery; in themean time the following TU activities have been ongoing:• Supporting continued research on Green Drake populations by Henry Frenia. TU-GCC provided$1,000 in funding to support pioneering research in the use of a portable mass spectrometer toidentify potential chemical toxins affecting Green Drake populations.

• Perusing the use of TU USA’s CSI (Conservation Success Index, http://www.tu.org/csi) as a toolto guide us. This activity is being led by Silvia D’Amelio.

• Initiating a brook trout habitat recover work in the CVC Upper Credit River Conservation Area.

Brian Greck

Fall General MeetingThursday, November 13,

20147:00 PMCVC Offices

1255 Old Derry Road

2014 CVC Stewardship Forum, Sat., Oct. 4th

The Greg Clark Chapter was invited to make apresentation of Chapter activities on the CreditRiver over our more than thirty year history.

This year the Stewardship Forum, an annual eventdesigned to recognize the important and valuedstewardship work done by volunteers was hostedby CVC at the U of T Mississauga Campus. It was attended bywell over 200 people, the largest attendance ever.

The GCC presentation was a co-operative effort with RichardHoffmann showing some great pictures and describing the veryenthusiastic work done by our Chapter members with importantadvice and direction from MNR Biologists and CVC Staff in thevery early days. Then Brian Greck covered the various initiativesundertaken from the middle 80’s until the present time includingthe Upper Credit River Rehabilitation Initiative and laterWeCARE on the West Credit River, concluding with C3 inOrangeville. We were told that it was the best attended of thevarious presentations in its time slot and the feedback fromattendees and CVC staff was very complimentary.

TUC Ontario and National – an update

The Bronte Creek Renewal Program continues tobe successful with more workdays andcommunity events. Long awaited educationalsignage will be installed in the park this fall.Courtcliffe park will be revitalized with winter construction,weather permitting. This park will have a new look in the springwith flowing water and trout instead of standing water and carp.

The Duffins Creek Headwaters Renewal Program continues togain momentum with more monitoring and assessment. A newagreement with Toronto and Region Conservation Authority willpave the way for instream restoration projects in 2015.

The Water Conservation Dinner and Auction, held in Torontowill be hosted by the Arcadian on December 3rd 2014. With anew venue, new MC, new auctioneer and wider variety ofmerchandise on the auction block, it is sure to be a fun event.Tickets are on sale now and can be purchased online attucanada.org

Workshops 4-6 of the Aquatic Renewal Program (streamrehabilitation training course) was run, producing the first 30graduates! This successful program now has a waiting list for thenext round of workshops. Fundraising is underway to scalematerials for a suite of national workshops.

Chapters are active in restoration, rehabilitation, conservationand education programs in southern and central Ontario.Current projects include river habitat restoration, water qualityassessment, fisheries assessment and youth education. Inaddition many chapters are keeping active in advocacy in localissues.

The Guelph office of TUC is moving to 27 Woodlawn Road Westin Guelph. These new offices are dedicated to TUC and providestorefront marketing opportunities. Feel free to contact theGuelph staff, or stop by and visit!

Much National Staff time continues to be devoted to issuesrelated to the new Federal Fisheries Act, its intent andimplications for new Policy and Regulations. In addition, TUChas been providing advice on DFO’s new funding program toimprove aquatic habitats across Canada.

Check the TUC website (tucanada.org) for national and regionalnews on the state of Canada’s fisheries and aquatic resources.Our youtube channel hosts many restoration and fish videosyou’ll enjoy. To keep on top of our latest news and events. . . trytwitter (@TUCanada1).

CSI (by Sylvia D’Amelio)

Trout Unlimited’s (US) Conservation Success Index is a strategicapproach to watershed and fisheries conservation. CSI is a modelthat utilizes landscape level information on over 20 differentvariables like forest cover, road densities, species mixes,genetics, riverine flow, aggregate extraction and many more.This information is scored and modeled over the landscape toproduce a colour coded map showing the best bets forconservation and can even indicate what the limited factors are.TUCanada, working in partnership with TU is bringing themodel to Canada to support Brook Trout conservation efforts.Training and model preparation was completed in April andrevealed that modifications to the model are needed toaccommodate Canadian data. With data generously providedby Credit Valley Conservation Authority, TUC plans to completethe first round of modeling on the Credit River waters. TUC staffhope that this information will help both agencies and the GCCin their efforts to stabilize and rebuild brook trout populations.

The CSI provides relative scores of conservation status for subwatersheds. http://www.tu.org/csi

Mike Warrian

Silvia D’Amelio

The cool and stormy summer of 2014 didn’t keepus away from our goal of helping to keep theCredit River clean and healthy through on-the-ground “ACTION”! We want to encourageeveryone to come out and help the river in 2015!We have some exciting things happening in 2015with a big project focusing on the Upper CreditConservation Area.

The Greg Clark Chapter was busy with a number of volunteerdays this spring and summer. We had a great showing of over100 volunteers this year at our events for a total of over 250volunteer hours thanks to partnership.

The Chapter continued their long standing work (33 years!)along the “Trout Unlimited Reach” of the river at the annualSligo Bridge Clean-up on April 12. Six intrepid volunteers came

out to show their support for the Trout Unlimited’s adoptedportion of the Credit River. We continue to show ourcommitment to help maintain this prestigious fishing locationfor everyone’s benefit. Over 200 pounds of garbage wereremoved from the site this year. A special thanks to the DeGiustifamily for hosting the post-work BBQ.

The Credit River’s 4th AnnualCheck Your Watershed Day eventwas held on July 19. Check YourWatershed Day is a hands-oncommunity event. In “StreamTeams” of two to four people(volunteers), recorded streamhealth by collecting temperaturedata from small streams at roadcrossings and taking photos ofeach culvert they visited. Duringthis unique community-driven experience, a large amount ofdata was collected to build a better understanding of the health

of the streams in the upperwatershed at a singlemoment in time. The datawill help to informstewardship activities andmanagement of the water-shed. A special thanks to

the 35+ volunteers who came out to help make this event anunprecedented success.

We celebrated our 6th annual Upper Credit Conservation Area(UCCA) stream restoration day this year. We have been activelyworking on this property with our partners to narrow the over-widened due to past cattle access. Several structures have beenbuilt over the last 6 years to accelerate the narrowing of thestream to helpspeed up flows,reduce streamtemperatures andprovide instreamhabitat for fish.This valuable workcould not havehappened withoutvaluable partnerssuch as IWFFC,Credit Valley YouthCorps, MNR, CVCand hundreds ofvolunteers whohave helped over the years. A special thanks to IWFFC forfunding provided and to the 5 volunteers and over 50Conservation Youth Corps who spent over 100 hours on theproject this summer! As part of the TUGCC’s renewed dedicationto the Upper Credit, a group of 8 volunteers went out to the

UCCA and started the processes of assessing future restorationprojects on the property. This valuable work will help providedirection towards the next 5 years of restoration on the propertywith a focus on improving brook trout habitat!

A special thanks to all the volunteers, partners and funders forhelping to make this a great year!

2014 TU Credit River “Action Days”

SherwinWatson-Leung

Credit River Fisheries Management Plan Update(CRFMP) (by Brian Greck

The Credit River Fisheries Management Plan Implementa-tion Committee has not met since December of 2013. As a result there is no news to report at this time.

Greg Clark Chapter Monthly Working Meetings

You are invited to join us at monthly working meetings to participate in the ongoing work of the chapter. These meetingsare held at the offices of CVC at 7:00 p.m. on the secondWednesday of every month from September to May at 1255 OldDerry Road

Chapter Webpage

Visit the Chapter webpage at:www.tucanada.org/index.asp?p=1991 to keep you posted on upcoming Chapter events and to read ournewsletters. There is also a history of the Chapter on the webpage.

Chapter Membership

If you haven’t yet renewed your Chapter membership, pleasetake a moment to do so. We really need you to help us protect,preserve and restore our valuable coldwater resources like theCredit River. You can renew on the Trout Unlimited websitewww.tucanada.org. Renewal now will extend your membershipto the end of 2015. If you live in the Credit River watershed andwant to help the river, we would like to welcome you to the GregClark Chapter. You can call Jack Mackay (416) 656-5277 oremail jackson.mackay@sympatico.ca for further information.

The Notice Board

Upper Credit River Conservation Area (UCRCA)

A visit by the brook trout recovery subcommittee,led by Credit Valley Conservation (CVC) biologistBrian Tress, was made to the UCRCA in May,2014, with the objective of identifying possiblesites for instream and shoreline habitatimprovement. Because these Credit River main-stem waters are above the Niagara Escarpment,there are small populations of native brook trout with no browntrout, rainbow trout or Atlantic salmon; restoration in this areatherefore fits into the chapter’s brook trout recovery strategy.

Several areas for potential habitat improvement were identified,and Brian Greck prepared a simplified, map-based draftproposal. CVC subsequently requested a multi-year plan withspecific work laid out in greater detail, and taking into account

hyromorphic, fish population and other biological data. No workwas done in 2014. Following discussion at Chapter meetings inSeptember and October, a meeting of the brook trout recoverysubcommittee and CVC staff was held on October 20, 2014,with the objective of identifying partners, objectives andresponsibilities. Partners will be: The Greg Clark Chapter, IzaakWalton Fly Fishing Club, CVC, Upper Credit River Trout Club,and Halton Peel Woodlands and Wildlife Stewardship; otherpotential partners will be approached. CVC proposed that theywill hire a biologist to review available data and prepare a multi-year, detailed plan in early 2015. The costs of the biologist willbe borne by other members of the partnership, but CVC willprovide the bulk of any required materials.

This project is still in the early planning stages, but it isanticipated that instream work can begin in the spring of 2015.

Trout Unlimited Canada – Greg Clark Chapterwww.tucanada.org/index.asp?p=1991 Publisher: Scott Wagner Contact: Jack Mackay 416-656-5277

More 2014 TU-GC Chapter’s “Action Days” Volunteers

Bob Kuehnbaum