Tailed Frog WHA Monitoring Comments - British … · Web viewRather than a relatively powerful BACI...

Pilot Evaluation of Tailed Frog

Wildlife Habitat Area Effectiveness Monitoring

Protocols

Prepared by Les W. Gyug, R.P.Bio.Okanagan Wildlife Consulting3130 Ensign Way,Westbank, B.C. V4T 1T9(250) [email protected]

Prepared for

Ecosystems Branch,B.C. Ministry of Environment, Victoria, B.C.

November 29, 2005.

TABLE OF CONTENTSINTRODUCTION.........................................................................................................3

WHA Effectiveness Monitoring....................................................................3PILOT PROJECT.........................................................................................................5

Goals and Objectives.....................................................................................6WHEN is a WHA EFFECTIVE?...................................................................................7STAND MEASURES.................................................................................................12ROUTINE INDICATORS/CONTEXT MEASUREMENTS............................................13EXTENSIVE INDICATORS/CHANNEL MEASUREMENTS........................................19

What to Monitor?.........................................................................................19Channel Morphology and Substrate..........................................................20Channel Condition.......................................................................................21Recommendations.......................................................................................22

DATA HANDLING....................................................................................................23REACH SELECTION.................................................................................................25LITERATURE CITED.................................................................................................26

List of Tables

Table 1. Effectiveness Measures. Table 3 from FREP 2005: Criteria for assessing indicator values during an effectiveness evaluation for the Rocky Mountain Tailed Frog from Version 1 with comments added.................................................................................................................9

Table 2. Fixed Context Meaures. Table 5 from FREP 2005: Watershed variables for classifying WHA sensitivity with comments added..........................................................................................14

Table 3. Routine THREAT Indicators. Table 1 from FREP 2005: Routine indicators of tailed frog WHA effectiveness with comments added.....................................................................................16

Table 4. Extensive CHANNEL indicators. Table 7 from FREP 2005: Indicators requiring field sampling for extensive evaluations. Simplified to Channel Measurements only, and with comments added..18

Note: there is no abstract, but the gist of the report is in the Tables, and in the Recommendations for Extensive Indicators section.

TAILED FROG WHA PROTOCOL EVALUATION 2 OKANAGAN WILDLIFE CONSULTING

INTRODUCTIONThe Coastal Tailed Frog (Ascaphus truei) and the Rocky Mountain Tailed Frog

(Ascaphus montanus) are primitive stream-breeding amphibians limited to the wet mountain areas of western North America. Within British Columbia the Coastal Tailed Frog is limited to the Coast and Cascade ranges, and the Rocky Mountain Tailed Frog is limited to two drainages in the southern Rocky Mountains and Columbia Mountains. Both species have been designated as Identified Wildlife under the Identified Wildlife Management Strategy (IWMS) Forest and Range Practices Act (FRPA) of British Columbia because of concerns for the effects of forestry practices on the habitat and populations of this species. Under the IWMS, Wildlife Habitat Areas (WHA) may be set aside for either of these species in areas along streams with no-timber-harvesting zones of 30-m on both sides of the streams, and an additional 20-m zone of managed forest adjacent to the 30-m reserve zone.

Development of monitoring strategies to determine the effectiveness of creating WHAs for tailed frogs has been underway since 2003. (The term tailed frogs will be used when referring to the two species generically, with comments referable to one species or the other made specifically.) Maxcy (2003) began the process of drafting a generic tailed frog WHA effectiveness monitoring scheme for both species, and Version 1 Protocols of a monitoring scheme more specific to the Rocky Mountain Tailed Frog was drafted January 2005 (FREP 2005).

This report is intended to be an “in-house” review of the proposed monitoring protocols, and meant to accompany another methods document that was written as part of the same pilot project. The companion report details the within-stream species-specific sampling portion of this project, i.e., the tailed frog tadpole sampling used to index a population. This report contains additional information and recommendations that were not contained within the tailed frog sampling report. Specifically I make comments on the choices of other indicators and criteria for monitoring based either the original recommendations and on our field trials, additional literature review, or on reappraisal of the goals and objectives for WHAs. This report is not intended for wide distribution in its current format.

I may not have been as specific about recommending some protocols in this report as might be expected. In using the various RISC protocols in the last few years, I have found that the more specific and complicated the protocol is, the less likely it is to be followed exactly. Generally, research tends to follow the “flavour of RISC”, without keeping to the minute details. The drawback for long-term monitoring is that once monitoring begins, further monitoring at the same site or set or sites must be equivalent for results to be comparable. If protocols are not specified before a project starts, then they must be specified as part of the data reporting so that the methods will be repeatable by any qualified observer in the future.WHA Effectiveness Monitoring

The four hierarchical levels of effort for WHA effectiveness monitoring are:1. Routine (paper, GIS or office-based),


2. Extensive (field data collection and analyses covering many WHAs at a minimal level of coverage),

3. Intensive (field data collection and analyses covering a smaller subset of WHAs at a more intensive level usually triggered by a set of criteria or indicators that reach a certain threshold during routine or extensive level monitoring), and

4. Applied research (very intensive studies with formal study designs that may or may not be applicable directly to WHA effectiveness monitoring, and may, or may not, be triggered directly by WHA effectiveness monitoring).

This pilot project was meant to test the methods applicable to the Routine and Extensive level of monitoring.

At each stage, we must consider what the point of the monitoring is, i.e., what are the indicators that are being monitored. A good indicator must be representative, reliable and feasible. FREP has developed guidelines for indicators that (FREP Extension Note#2, Routine/Extensive Indicator Workshop March 2004) that list other properties of a good indicator:• Focused on answering a specific evaluation question;• Correlated to what you want to measure;• Based on valid scientific research and literature;• Relevant at various scales (site, feature, landscape);• Responsive to forest and range practices in a predictable way;• Low naturally occurring variability;• Well documented (rationale, methodology, analysis);• Peer reviewed;• Understood and supported by stakeholders;• Practical, easy to measure, interpretable;• Cost effective;• Baseline data available; and• Part of a suite of indicators for evaluating a resource value.

Looking down the list of properties of a good indicator above, I would conclude that very few tailed frog WHA indicators that could be used will fit all, or even most, of the prop-erties. There is a general lack of very specific information about some aspects of tailed frog biology, particularly for the adult segment of the population, and variability seems to be fairly high in tadpole populations. Therefore any indicators that do get chosen will necessar-ily be tradeoffs, and be stronger in some properties than in others.

In the hierarchy of steps for developing and implementing indicators, this pilot project was Step D of FREP Extension Note#2, i.e., testing of some of the indicators devel-oped by Maxcy (2003) and/or Version 1 (FREP 2005). Indicators may be function-based, structure-based or species-based. The companion report to this one details the species-based (tailed frog) indicators and methods. In this report I will deal with the other types of indicators.

One cannot expect too much from extensive monitoring. Monitoring is not, and can-not replace, applied research. Monitoring can only show that a WHA is not ineffective, it


cannot show that a WHA is effective. The necessary contrasts to prove effectiveness are not made within a monitoring program. Only if a study design is formalized and expanded to in-clude contrasts can one show that WHAs are effective. For example, if tailed frogs persist in a WHA, and/or conditions that we think are suitable for tailed frogs persist in a WHA, then we conclude the WHA is not ineffective, but we cannot conclude that it is effective because we do not know what the situation would be if the WHA was not there. To prove a WHA is effec-tive we must design either a retrospective study or use a Before-After Control-Impact (BACI) study design. To answer relatively simple questions like what size of forest buffer is neces-sary to maintain stream temperatures or soil moisture within certain limits in a WHA (one of the objectives of these WHAs), it would be better to design applied research focused on such a question that would answer it in a fraction of the time and a fraction of the eventual cost of extensive and/or intensive monitoring.

Effectiveness monitoring would be a very weak study design if it would be considered applied research. Rather than a relatively powerful BACI study design, WHA monitoring is just the before part, and may never include the after, or the control or the impact parts ex-cept by luck. With no control over impacts, there is no study design. Compared to retro-spective studies, which can be powerful if carefully designed, WHA effectiveness monitoring chooses replicates of no variables, and controls for no particular factors. Any significant ob-served reductions in tailed frog populations that might be observed within WHAs would be subject to more intense levels of scrutiny to try and determine cause-and-effect, but without any strong study design. Only in the simplest of situations (e.g. streams scoured by floods or filled by debris flows) would the efforts to determine cause-and-effect by indirect correla-tion probably be fruitful. Many of the other possible effects of logging and road building on tailed frog populations within WHAs are likely to be too subtle to be detected by correlation of variables with the results of low-intensity long-term monitoring. For instance, the effects of road building and maintenance on watersheds is a field of study in itself (e.g. Jones et al. 2000), and no amount of attempted indirect correlation will replace well-designed applied research.

If we really want to know if WHAs are effective, maybe a few applied research studies are what is needed, and long-term monitoring should be at the bare minimum level with more funds put into very focused studies that will address the questions of interest directly.

PILOT PROJECT The study area was near the eastern edge of the range of the Coastal Tailed Frog in

the Merritt Timber Supply Area (TSA) of the Cascades Forest District on the eastern slopes of the Cascade Mountains (Figure 1). Fifteen Tailed Frog WHAs had been established along streams occupied by tailed frogs in this area based on sampling from 2000-2002 (Gyug 2000, Gyug 2001, Gyug 2002). Recommended sampling designs for determining tailed frog tadpole abundance are detailed in the companion report. The goal of this pilot project for extensive monitoring was to try to find a one-day per WHA monitoring protocol that would be reliable and useful.

In this report I detail how I went through the data collection and collation of routine indicators suggested by both Maxcy (2003) and Version 1 (FREP 2005) for each of the 15


WHAs in the Merritt TSA. In tabular format, I make comments about each indicator, and suggest collection of a few more routine indicators. I do not repeat the level of detail about how indicators were chosen that is in either Maxcy (2003) of Version 1 and I will refer the reader to those documents for full details behind each indicator. We did very limited field testing of collection of physical indicators. What we did collect was limited to bankful and wet stream widths, stream and air temperatures, estimation of pool:riffle ratio (really the slow:fast ratio) in every 5-m sample segment, estimation of streambed composition in every 5-m sample segment, and photo points at the start of every A level 5-m sample segment. The results of correlations of tadpole numbers and stream variables are presented in the Channel Measures section. Except for the widths and temperatures, I think there is very limited useful information in this field data but I did get a sense of how much information we would be able to collect in a day, and the type of information that would be useful in the future in any cause-and-effect investigations should these be required in the future.Setting Goals and Objectives

Before any monitoring begins, it is vital to have the goals/objectives for both WHAs in total, and for each WHA. The goals of the WHAs are multiple, and linked to both tailed frog populations, stream conditions, and the WHA stands adjacent to the stream. The goal for Coastal Tailed Frog WHAs are to: “Maintain important streams and suitable breeding areas.” (IWMS 2004). “These streams/stream reaches are generally characterized by (1) presence of tadpoles, (2) year-round flow (perennial streams or gullies), (3) inter-mediate gradient (to allow formation of step-pool morphology), (4) coarse substrates, (5) stable channel beds, and (6) forest cover.” (IWMS 2004).

General Wildlife Measures to apply within the WHAs are: 1. Maintain clean and stable cobble/boulder gravel substrates, natural step-pool channel

morphology, stream temperatures within tolerance limits.2. Maintain microclimatic, hydrological, and sedimentation regimes to (1) limit the

frequency of occurrence of extreme discharge events, (2) limit the mortality rate of tailed frogs during floods, and (3) meet foraging and dispersal requirements of the adults and metamorphs.

3. Maintain riparian forest.4. Maintain important structural elements (e.g., coarse woody debris).5. Maintain water quality and naturally dispersed water flows.6. Minimize risk of windthrow. (From IWMS 2004).

A concept of stratifying tailed frog stream reaches was proposed by Dupuis and Friele (2002) but was not available when the Cascades WHAs were proposed in 2000-2002. The Cascade WHAs include frontier, core, and transient reaches although not each type of reach is found in each WHA. The goals and objectives for tailed frogs in each type of reach are different. Frontier reaches are headwater reaches that are primarily adult habitat and are parts of probable migration routes across forested (or semi-forested) headwater basin divides. Core reaches contain natal reaches, and are where the bulk of the tailed frog population occurs. Transient reaches are downstream reaches that are also often low-gradient fish streams, but where there may be significant downstream movement of tadpoles from core reaches. Most WHAs in the east Cascades were core reaches, and this TAILED FROG WHA PROTOCOL EVALUATION 6 OKANAGAN WILDLIFE CONSULTING

would appear to be the intent of the IWMS (2004) for Coastal Tailed Frogs.It is important to set goals, objectives and indicators both for individual WHAs, for

groups of regional WHAs, and for WHAs in total. For instance, it might be expected in a WHA with a low density and/or a highly variable tailed frog population that the population may occasionally be extirpated and would require rescue by immigration. It is probably not realistic to assume that tailed frogs will continue to inhabit every WHA stream at current abundances over time since tadpole numbers will be reduced after flash floods (e.g. Metter 1968) but one objective is for populations to be stable on a whole drainage basis (IWMS 2004) (presumably over an area which would be readily recolonized after possible local extirpation).

WHAs are also not expected to maintain tailed frog populations on their own, and the amount of contribution of each WHA stream to the total tailed frog population is unknown in most cases. Except for the Rocky Mountain Tailed Frog which occurs in a very limited range, a WHA on every Coastal Tailed Frog stream is not a realistic option, and therefore WHA monitoring can only, at best, determine the state of tailed frogs within the WHA. Monitoring cannot determine the role of WHAs within the tailed frog population as a whole which would require a type of spatially-specific species management plan which is not envisaged, and which would require knowledge of populations in each stream in each basin.

In the east Cascades, the purpose of the WHAs when they were established was to provide forested reserves along tailed frog streams where there would have been no other planned reserves in the absence of WHAs. Some of the tailed frog core reaches in the east Cascades already have 20-m reserve buffers because they are S3 streams. Some of these were nominal fish streams, i.e., fish were virtually absent, or were truly absent but without proven downstream fish barriers the stream was classified as S3. I proposed some of these as tailed frog WHAs only because I thought that future stream surveys might decide the fish values of the streams to be so low (or non-existent) that they could lose their S3 status, and be designated S5 streams with no reserve buffer. Some of the S3 streams that are not WHAs still have large tailed frog populations that contribute to the state of the overall tailed frog population, but will not be monitored within WHA monitoring. In addition only about 1/3 to 1/2 of the watersheds on the east side of the Cascades have even been examined for po-tential WHAs, i.e., the WHA selection process is not finished (Gyug 2002).

WHEN is a WHA EFFECTIVE? The question of how/when one would consider a WHA, or groups of WHAs, effective

was skirted in Maxcy (2003), where criteria of effectiveness were proposed in a “For example . . . if . . .” manner, and then never finalized. There are a whole suite of indicators and measures but no clear indication of how many of them will be used. This was remedied in Version 1 (FREP 2005, Table 3, reproduced as Table 1 here).

First it is necessary to put the WHA into local and/or regional context with measure-ments that include:

1. Fixed measurements (mostly topographic and/or climatic), that will only need to be determined once, or updated infrequently, and


2. Measurements of potential threat to the WHA and/or stream (e.g., soil distur-bance and watershed integrity measured by % basin in young forest, road density in basin, % WHA boundary adjacent to young forest, etc.) that will need to be updated on a routine basis, and can usually be done without field work (i.e., Routine Indicators).

Secondly, Version 1 proposed effectiveness measures (Table 1) that fell into three main categories:

1. Species-specific measures (dealt with in the companion document),2. Channel condition and stream measures (CHANNEL Measures), and 3. Riparian/adjacent upland habitat and stand measures (STAND Measures).

Each of these will require some measure of field work (extensive or intensive) to determine their current state, and their state in the future (i.e., as they are monitored).

There appears to be some confusion in Version 1’s Table 3 with scale of consideration, and scale at which an indicator is measured. All indicators are measured on local scales (some at smaller scales than others) but once we start evaluating for WHA effectiveness, we may want to consider them at several scales. Most measures should be considered at both regional and local scales—not just one or the other.

However, I would like to note that there will be limits to what a WHA can accomplish, and the judgment of effectiveness has to reflect this. I would also contend that the terms “functioning” and “effective” should not necessarily be equated. Hydrological regimes are basin-wide features, and not just WHA features, so it is difficult to see how a WHA can be judged as effective at mitigating something which may have occurred whether it was there or not. For example, if a flash flood, debris flow, or very high sediment load occurred because of upstream basin effects (as determined by a post-event cause-and-effect investigation), and this event wiped out all the tadpoles in the WHA stream, and the stream is not currently functioning as a tadpole stream, this does not provide any basis for concluding that the WHA was effective or ineffective. The result would have been the same if the WHA had been there, or if it hadn’t been there. In that situation, determining effectiveness of the WHA will require assessment of whether the riparian forest stand of the WHA provided a suitable refuge for adults so they could repopulate the stream, if the event left it in a suitable condition for repopulating. But even if the stream is not suitable any longer for tailed frogs, and the stream is not functioning, this does not mean we can conclude it was because the WHA was not effective.

Threat indicators (using the term proposed by Maxcy, 2003) will not indicate if a WHA is effective, or even functioning. They should be used to trigger more detailed intensive monitoring, and might be used for cause-and-effect investigations should other indicators show that a WHA is not functioning, but don’t allow us to conclude anything about a WHA on their own. For example, if 95% of a WHA basin has been logged, and the WHA is the only intact forest, then the “Not Functioning” label would have been applied using the Version 1 considerations, but the WHA might actually be effective (lots of tailed frogs, channel condition OK). So we cannot confuse what is happening in the rest of the basin with what the WHA might, or might not, be doing.


Table 1. Effectiveness Measures. Table 3 from FREP 2005: Criteria for assessing indicator values during an effectiveness evaluation for the Rocky Mountain Tailed Frog from Version 1 with comments added.

Indicator Functioning

(effective)

Functioning – At Risk

Functioning – High

Risk

Not Functioning (not effective)

Comments

Provincial scale

For Coastal Tailed Frog, this would read Regional Scale, but also be applicable

Tadpole (and proportion of older cohorts)

Increasing or stable in all key WHAs

(strongholds and critical

linkages)

Median density

declining by ≥ 20% in any key

WHA

Median density

declining by ≥ 20% in more than one

key WHA per region

Median declining by ≥ 20%

everywhere (Is every WHA

really meant? How does one

measure everywhere?)

Why median? Even a median requires an assumption about similar distributions being compared. Therefore—choose sample sites randomly within the monitored reach and use more powerful ANOVA or Regression analyses to detect declines?

20% was chosen, but 20% may not be a reliable level. % will vary depending on initial density. 20% variation is normal in sparsely populated reaches. I suggested 50% to be outside normal variations, but that could be debated. On an individual monitored reach basis, the decline that is outside normal variation (at 0.05 or some such level) can easily be defined. Then this could just say “A significant decline noted at so-and-so many WHAs”.

Even if they were declining by 20% in every WHA, how do we know it has anything to do with the function of WHAs? Could it be from a few drought years?

The actual question here is about groups of WHAs, not individual WHAs. The assumption is that variation in individual WHAs is not as critical as variation in all of them. Individual WHAs should not be ignored, and tadpole measurements should also be included in sub-basin scale below to trigger cause-and-effect investigations on individual WHAs.

See companion document for more considerations (e.g. I would add “missing” cohorts to simple % population declines).

Proportion of juveniles (recruits)

6+% of encounters during searches

4-5% of encounters

during searches

2-3% of encounters

during searches

<2% of encounters during

searches

% of encounters is not a reliable indicator. % change in encounters from baseline might be a reliable indicator but will require verification using long-term data (which is not currently available).

Proportion of adults

10+% of encounter

s

7-9% of encounters

4-6% of encounters

≤4% of encounters

Ditto.

in all monitored core

reaches of WHAs

in any one monitored

core reach that

is considered to be a

in >1 monitored

core reach that

is considered to be a

in all monitored core reaches

that are considered to

be a stable and high density natal reach

I would include all the measures below in the regional scale above as well using similar criteria to “condition XYZ in all key WHAs, in any key WHA, in >1 key WHA, in every WHA”. For Coastal Tailed Frogs, where there are no key WHAS, I would propose substituting as at left.

I have proposed that only monitoring in high-density core natal reaches be considered. For Coastal Tailed Frogs, these would be roughly equivalent to RM Tailed Frogs “key” or


stable and high

density natal reach

stable and high

density natal reach

“stronghold” WHA reaches. I am not sure how to fit the low-density natal reaches, and the non-natal core reaches into this scheme since variability is expected to be higher there.

Catchment (Sub-basin) scaleChannel condition

High to moderate,

and increasing or stable in all key WHAs

High to moderate,

and decreasing in all key WHAs

Poor condition

and/or decreasing

Very poor condition

“Channel condition” as defined in Version 1 is a very complex indicator using at least 7 sub-indicators without very clear weighting methods of the sub-indicators. However, channel condition is one of the two key indicators/measures (along with species-specific tailed frog measures) that need to be considered for WHAs individually as well as regionally, but I think it might be simplified slightly from the proposed Version 1.The FREP Riparian Evaluation only looks at post-harvest sites and evaluates channel condition based on 15 key questions/indicators that are considerably simpler than proposed in Version 1. See Channel Measure Indicator section for further discussion.

THREAT indicators (that are hard to interpret as effectiveness measures alone).

Headwater connectivity

>60% forest

cover in and above ephemeral headwater

s

<60% forest cover

in and above

ephemeral headwaters

< 30% forest cover

at basin divides

< 15% forest cover at the

height of land

This might be possible for RM Tailed Frog with a limited range, but not for Coastal Tailed Frog. This would require mapping of occupied streams and estimation of forested travel routes over basin divides. This is a GIS exercise that is more like metapopulation mapping.

It is important to management, but is not a few-hour exercise. Orville Dyer in Region 8 asked me as far back as 4 years ago if we could do this for tailed frogs on the east side of the Cascades, in an area that is probably about the same size as the range of the RM Tailed Frog. The answer was that it could be done, but would not be a trivial exercise, even with good knowledge of tailed frog distributions and the landscape, and with all the GIS data at hand. At this point, we have not even evaluated all the watersheds in the same area to see how many WHAs there could/should be.

Soil disturbance

< 2 km/km2

roads < 150 road

crossings

unknown unknown unknownI would defer to the FPC Watershed Assessment Procedure (WAP) guidebooks for this measure and the next 3 as well. They go into detail on what to measure, how to measure it, and how to score the measures. First step should be to determine if Level 1 WAP has been done. If so, then use the data from the assessment and update as necessary. If it has not been assessed, then this assessment will be a WAP sub-Level 1, and I am not sure how efficient it will be, and I am not sure exactly which of the multiple measures would/could/should apply to tailed frog indicators as any sort of indicator.

Extent of forest fragmentatio

<50% young

forest (<

>50% young

forest cover

> 75% young

forest cover

>90% young forest cover in

basin

As noted in the text, will only affect WHA function if channel condition and tailed frogs are affected. It could be that the WHA is very effective as a refugia in an otherwise clearcut landscape, in which case the WHA is functioning. This would be interesting to test. Areas


n in sub-basin

30 yrs) in basin

in basin in basinexist where it could be tested in some Region 2 basins.

Watershed integrity

> 20% forest 100+

years old

≤ 20% forest 100+ years old

≤ 10% forest 100+ years old

≤5% forest 100+ years

Measures almost the same thing as above, just the inverse. Same comments apply. It would be nice to link the % numbers to some definitive hydrological measures as used by MOF but I do not have the knowledge or expertise to do so.

Riparian protection

< 25% disturbanc

e to management zone

25-49% disturbance

to manageme

nt zone

50-75% disturbance

to manageme

nt zone

> 75% disturbance to

management zone

This may be a matter of both compliance monitoring and effectiveness monitoring. The results may trigger a compliance audit if harvesting was done since WHA designation. The actual % here need to be considered more carefully, but I do not know of any data that would allow one to make such considerations. E.g., the management zone (30-50 m from the WHA stream) is designed to be “managed”, so if it is disturbed to the 75% level, how can this be used to conclude the WHA is not functioning as it should?

Habitat (site) scale STAND Measures

CWD Unknown –baseline

data required

Unknown –baseline

data required

Unknown -baseline

data required

No cover objects With so much unknown here, it is hard to perceive how this could be used to determine effectiveness of WHAs. CWD threshold or tolerance limits for tailed frogs are unknown. Even lots of extensive effectiveness monitoring will not change that. By design, WHAs have a reserve zone/buffer zone so that the amount of variation in these factors will not be extreme. Better to set up simple retrospective or BACI studies that directly address how these factors are affected by cutting up to a WHA boundary, or by cutting right up to a stream, or by setting different reserve zone sizes, and determine if there is any correlation with tailed frogs. See additional comments in text.

Riparian structure

Unknown –baseline

data required

Unknown –baseline

data required

Unknown -baseline

data required

Unknown –baseline data

required

Ditto.

Soil moisture

Unknown –baseline

data required

Unknown –baseline

data required

Unknown -baseline

data required

Unknown –baseline data

required

Ditto.


STAND MEASURES

I will address the indicators and measures of the riparian stands adjacent to the streams here, rather than try and do so within the tables below. I believe that measurement of stands adjacent to the stream is a matter of both compliance monitoring, and effective-ness monitoring. Compliance monitoring measures whether the boundaries of the WHA have been respected, i.e., is there a 30-m reserve zone with an additional 20-m buffer zone for any timber harvesting done after the WHA was designated. If it has been respected, then the question becomes whether this reserve and buffer have done their jobs, i.e. main-tained moisture, temperature, CWD and shading levels in the riparian stand as an indicator of adult habitat, and in the stream as adult and tadpole habitat. I believe that this will best be addressed by intensive monitoring when, and if, such harvesting occurs adjacent to the WHA. If sufficient notice is given of such timber harvest, then a BACI study design can be in-corporated into the WHA monitoring.

Trying to measure these stand indicators in one spot on the WHA where changes in forest cover have not occurred adjacent to a WHA (and may never occur) will be a fruitless exercise that will not yield results except by luck, and even then it may be many years until before-after comparisons can be made. Even once timber harvesting should occur adjacent to a monitored reach, one would still depend on comparisons made to unimpacted portions of the WHA as a control—for which we would have no long-term measurements, nor would we have had any adult monitoring in place to correlate with any observed environmental changes. The study design would therefore be a retrospective type no matter when it was done (see Bisson et al 2002 for just such a study in the Olympic Peninsula). It would be more efficient to do a retrospective study now so that results can be applied to WHAs before they are designated, rather than wait until some unforeseeable future time when many more WHAs may have been designated at what have turn out to be an “incorrect” buffer size.

Some research to address temperature and moisture changes to streams and to ri-parian reserve forests with adjacent clearcutting already exists. The minimal amount of data gathered during extensive monitoring will not add significantly to this body of knowl-edge, or address many (or any?) gaps in that knowledge. The costs of trying to incorporate reliable and repeatable stand measures into long-term WHA monitoring of single short reaches in a WHA are high. Measuring canopy closure is not simple because quick and dirty visual estimates are not reliable; temperature measured at one point in time is relatively meaningless without longer-term records (i.e., over the course of the week or month and with comparisons to long-term climate stations), soil moisture measurements are meaning-less without proper controls and long-term comparisons, and the correlation of CWD with tailed frog adult habitat has never been made (and we are not measuring tailed frog adult densities in any of this monitoring, so never will be able to make any such correlations). The payoff in knowledge that would be directly applicable to tailed frog management and WHA effectiveness would be much higher by designing and implementing focused stand-level studies, rather than assigning them to long-term monitoring of one tiny reach of a WHA.


It is relatively straightforward to estimate changes in riparian stand structure after adjacent logging without any measurements made prior to logging. Such research has been done by the FPB in riparian buffers, and is part of the FREP Riparian Evaluation scheme (at least on a cursory basis). It is fairly simple after timber harvest to reconstruct the pre-har-vest stand based on stump counts, pushovers, blowdown, trees that appear to have died since harvest, and felled danger trees in the WHA reserve and buffer to compare to the post-harvest stand. It is not necessary to have years of data beforehand prior to impacts to com-pare such estimates with.

I think that measurements of riparian stands adjacent to the streams should only be made at the most cursory level (e.g. forested or unforested, stand age, stand canopy clo-sure, and stand height) similar to the level of detail available in VRI/FC. It doesn’t seem to me that detailed measurements, except as part of focused studies with explicit study de-signs, belong as part of extensive monitoring. ROUTINE INDICATORS/CONTEXT MEASUREMENTS

Tables 1 and 5 have been copied from Version 1 (FREP 2005) (as Tables 2 and 3 here) I consider Table 5 to be Fixed Measurements (although some might actually change a bit over time), and Table 1 to be THREAT indicators that will change over time and will need routine updating. I have not gone into any detail about how or why these were chosen—see the original documents for those details.

It took me 3 days to gather the data and calculate these Routine Indicators for the 15 Merritt WHAs. I used DEM (Geobase version of TRIMI DEM), TRIM (I or II depending on what was immediately available), Forest Cover (1995) and Road (2003) coverages that I already had from other MOE projects. I updated Forest Cover to 2003 from the 2001 digital FDP coverage, and from a 2003 Landsat image of the areas, and projected ages to 2005. The 2003 road coverage was developed for the North Cascades Grizzly Recovery Plan, and is much more accurate in road typing than either Forest Cover or TRIM road layers. The TRIM road layer tended to overestimate road coverage since some of the TRIM mappers in some areas tended to include recent skid trails as roads, and sometimes include completely overgrown roads. During the field work in 2005 we did not notice any timber harvesting that had occurred after 2003 in the WHA areas, but then we did not visit each part of each WHA watershed. If I had to start collecting this data from square one, and updated timber harvesting to 2005, it would have taken a few extra days.

Most of the Threat Indicators are simplified versions of portions of the Watershed Assessment Procedure. If IWAP (Interior) or CWAP (Coastal) are available for a given drainage, then these should be referenced and updated rather than trying to repeat work at a cursory level that has already been done at a more detailed level. Have IWAP and CWAP ever been evaluated to see which of their indicators/measures were most effective at predicting hydrological extremes or breakdowns? If so, perhaps one or another of the WAP measures should be the ones adopted here as Threat Indicators. WAP measure scores may be used in the WHA basins to indicate threshold values to trigger more intensive (or more frequent extensive) monitoring of tailed frog WHAs. I think better to piggyback on whatever may have been discovered in that process than try to create a new one.


Table 2. Fixed Context Measures. Table 5 from FREP 2005: Watershed variables for classifying WHA sensitivity with comments added.

Variable Description Scale Source of information Comments

Fixed (spatial) parameters - acquired once

Basin size (A) Catchment area (m2 or km2)

Sub-basin GIS query of manually digitized boundaries Use the ArcView hydrological extension (freeware) on TRIM-DEM—almost instant compared to manually digitizing boundaries.

Relief (H) Height above downstream end of WHA

Sub-basin GIS query using TRIM. Determine height of divide (m), as the hypsometric elevation below which 90% of basin area (H90) lays. Relief (H) is height of divide minus sample elevation.

Use TRIM DEM converted to grid, then to mass points then sum per basin by elevation.

Ruggedness (R)

Overall basin slope (m/m or %)

Sub-basin Calculate ruggedness as H/A0.5, where A is basin area (m2)

Melton’s R. The lower it is, the less likely the stream is to have debris flows and/or flash floods (depending on other factors as well).

Aspect Degrees/General Aspect

GIS query from TRIM Streams are too twisty, and sometimes take severe changes of direction within one WHA—use one or more general aspects (e.g. NE)

Elevation Elevation at downstream end of WHA Elev at upstream end Elev at monitored reach

Stream GIS query from TRIM (handheld GPS or altimeter is unreliable in confined channels)

TRIM DEM.

Drainage pattern

Long-profile (concave, benched) Degree of branching Total stream length in basin (by order?)

Sub-basin GIS query using TRIM:Number of tributary nodes Contour/river intersection along stream reach

Stream profile created by adding elevation from gridded TRIM DEM to TRIM stream polylines converting them into polylineZ. ArcView can then plot profiles for you in one easy step. Much faster than any other method. Convert to PointZ for use in other graphing programs.Does stream order influence what nodes might mean? TRIMII has many more 1st order tributaries mapped than TRIMI, so there are now more nodes without anything actually changing.


Stream Order WHA TRIM (and NTS 1:50,000 K if required for comparisons to stream studies or watershed atlas)

This is for comparison to other published literature on tailed frog biology

Bedrock Geology List bedrock types and subtypes in basin

MOM digital bedrock geology maps Determine whether bedrock is competent or friable. I have added this in for Coastal Tailed Frogs—it is not relevant to RM Tailed Frogs.

Seasonal (temporal) parameters BEC BEC composition of basin

BEC composition of WHA by stream length BEC of monitored reach(es)

MOE/MOF coverages (I used 2003 Kamloops FR version by Lloyd that is not yet incorporated into provincial BEC Version 5. (But should be in Version 6 whenever that is produced)

BEC is the best surrogate for climate data currently available.If better local data is available, by all means use it, but local data is usually not available.

Temperature Weekly/monthly temperature; degree days above 0°C

Regional

Meteorological Service of Canada, National Climate Data Centre and Information Archive Merritt TSA has Sensitive Stream Study (Henderson 2001).

Ditto.Henderson (2001) and Climate station data can be used to compare/correlate stream and air temperatures collected on any given day in many streams in the east Cascades.

Precipitation Weekly/monthly precipitation level (mm); annual proportion of snow and rain

Regional

Meteorological Service of Canada, National Climate Data Centre and Information Archive

Ditto


Table 3. Routine THREAT Indicators. Table 1 from FREP 2005: Routine indicators of tailed frog WHA effectiveness with comments added.

Indicator Description Source Comments

Collate existing baseline information

Previous ASTR studies Previous stream assessments

and/or fish surveys Previous watershed

assessments (IWAP, CWAP)

MOE AquaCat/EcoCat for listings of

previous studies e.g., Merritt TSA Fish Inventory

Sources.xls IWAP, CWAP

Not really indicators, but this information does need to be assessed, usually at WHA designation stage, but if not, then should be considered at this stage. Might have information about indicators of interest for long-term comparisons, i.e. the process does not need to start at Year 0 of WHA monitoring, but can extend back depending on nature of impacts for which we might eventually want to investigate cause-and-effect.For Merritt very few of the fish/stream inventories are in EcoCat but all (up to 2002) are in the Excel file made locally to catalogue fish and stream inventories. Most WAP and stream reports are available at local forest licensee’s offices.

Road density in WHA catchment basin

Index of sedimentation potential IWAP, CWAP Level 1, or WAP-Lite Version

If existing WAP not available, then must do a WAP-Lite.See other comments in Effectiveness Measure Table

No. of stream crossings in WHA catchment basin

Index of sedimentation potential Ditto Ditto

Soil disturbance Index of sedimentation potential Ditto

Riparian forest disturbance

Index of disturbance in WHA management zone and next to WHA boundaries: recent cutblocks and road crossings, natural disturbance events (e.g., fire, pest outbreaks, windthrow)

I have used % WHA boundary (perimeter) adjacent to young (<30 yr) forest, and number of road crossings of streams in basin per unit area. VRI/FC mapping is too inaccurate at such narrow scales to try and estimate % WHA reserve and buffer areas disturbed or in young forest. This would require fine-scale remapping from 1:20,000 colour orthophotos and field verification. Even the WHA boundaries are not set in stone because they are based on TRIM streams. When cutting adjacent to TRIM streams, the streams are remapped locally and then riparian management boundaries are set, i.e. there is no complete reliance on TRIM at the cutblock level. I imagine the same process would be required adjacent to WHAs where the distance from actual stream is more important than the TRIM-mapped entity.


This also requires VRI/FC maps which can quantify riparian forest cover in a very general sense of age and stand. Usually not very accurate descriptions bands of riparian forest (e.g. spruce or cedar) along streams that are too narrow to map.

Degree of forest fragmentation in WHA catchment basin

Index of watershed (sub-basin) integrity

Ditto See previous table.

Headwater forest linkage

Index of dispersal habitat connectivity Not a trivial exercise for Coastal Tailed Frogs, see previous table.


Table 4. Extensive CHANNEL indicators. Table 7 from FREP 2005: Indicators requiring field sampling for extensive evaluations. Simplified to Channel Measurements only, and with comments added.

Indicator Measure Method Comments .

General comment: These are only monitoring indicators when we detect changes in them. Their usefulness as indicators must be assessed by how change would be detected, quantified and interpreted in relation to tailed frog suitability.

Channel geometry

Channel classificationNumber of steps/reach; average step height and scour depth; channel width, depth and channel slope.

Theodolite surveys The question is how best to quantify this for extensive monitoring. See text for discussion. But see additional discussion in Bisson et al. (2002) that found channel morphology very important to fish, but only substrate and adjacent forest conditions important for tailed frogs.

Substrate texture

Type (wood or stones) and dimensions of step forming materials).Grain size distribution (D50) and sorting (D84/D16) of step and pool substratePhoto documentation

Transect or grid point counts (Wolman 1954; Kellerhals and Bray 1971)

Pole photography


EXTENSIVE INDICATORS/CHANNEL MEASUREMENTS What to Monitor?

Stream conditions are important to tailed frog tadpoles. The question is how these can best be monitored within extensive long-term monitoring where there are practical limits on the effort that can be expended for monitoring single reaches on each WHA, and where some tailed frog sampling must also be included. Version 1 (FREP 2005) went into detail about these channel measurements and made specific recommendations that appeared very intensive (Table 7 reproduced here in simplified form as Table 4). For the Rocky Mountain Tailed Frog, fairly intensive monitoring, even at the extensive stage, may be the best protocol because the range is so small, and the level of threat/risk is higher than for the more widespread Coastal Tailed Frog.

There are many stream monitoring methods, and many of these are specific to the Pacific Northwest, and some have been developed in B.C. Most of these have been directed at assessment of stream conditions for fish, and have considered different levels of assessment from the simplest and most basic up to very detailed assessments. However, most of these will not be directly applicable to tailed frog streams that are usually of a cascade, step-pool or plane-bed channel type. In addition, all these types of channels usually have a forced step-pool geometry beyond what the natural channel may be from semi-randomly placed Large Woody Debris (LWD) or boulders that are immovable by normal high flows. There is a growing body of literature on such streams, some of which has been cited in Version 1, but little of which has been applied directly (yet) to tailed frog microhabitat assessments.

As an example, most monitoring schemes seem to have a slot for whether or not the stream is stable judged by whether moss is growing on top of the rocks. In my experience with tailed frogs, moss on top of cobbles indicates that tailed frogs will not be found in a stream. The spring flows in the typical tailed frog stream in the east Cascades are such that most step-forming clasts are inundated and scrubbed (and perhaps moved?) each spring. In other words, tailed frogs streams have a certain level of instability inherent in them, and it is the amphibious nature of the adult life stage that allows them to persist in such streams where fish cannot (or generally do not) survive. So it is not easy to judge condition in inherently unstable streams using most of the fish-stream low-gradient-stream assessment methods that were selected as measures of stability. That said, there are levels of instability in these tailed frog streams such that streams more prone to torrenting are probably poorer habitat and less frequently occupied (e.g. Dupuis et al 2000).

Version 1 summed up (and I paraphrase here) the possible stream impacts of road building and clearcutting in a basin upstream of a WHA. These could be increased flows at spring floods, decreased flows later in the season, flash floods during or after heavy rains, increased sedimentation, and debris flows. Impacts to tailed frogs are likely to be seen when there are: Increases in fine sediment collection (sands and fine gravels) that decrease tadpole

suitability by filling crevices in large gravels, cobbles and boulders,


Increased extreme flows/floods that may o remove step armouring (LWD and/or clasts), leading to a decrease in suitable

step-pool structures (and replacement by plane-bed structures?) o result in an increase in unstable braided conditions without suitable step-pools, o increase scour at meanders, and underneath and around suspended (i.e. not

embedded) LWD, resulting in increased bedload movement, and o increase movement of bedload resulting in increased tadpole drift and mortality.

Channel Morphology and Substrate The most important indicators that were most directly correlated with tailed frog

suitability were found to be: 1. streambed substrate size/composition, and 2. the availability of crevices, i.e., lack of embeddedness of coarse gravels,

cobbles and boulders.This is based on 18 of 20 studies cited by Maxcy 2003 (and a few more that she did not cite but that found the same conclusion). All other indicators are much more indirect measures. Stream stability, stream flows, critical discharges, pool-step ratios may all be important features but none of these seem to be as directly and consistently correlated with tailed frog habitat suitability as the above.

Maxcy (2003) found that only 6 of 11 studies were able to correlate tailed frog abundance with stream morphology, where most of the significant results were associations with faster water (i.e. riffles or cascades). In this pilot project, I found no correlation of tadpole numbers in 5-m sample segments with fast:slow water composition (% pools) of the 5-m sample segments (n=125 first visits to sample segments, 962 tadpoles counted, F1,124=0.14, p=0.70, r=-.003). There was a negative correlation of tadpole numbers found in 5-m sample segments with fine (sand and gravel) substrate percentage of the 5-m sample segments based on visual estimates (n=125, F1,124=5.21, p=0.02, r=-0.19), or conversely there was a positive correlation of tadpole numbers with coarse (cobble and boulder) substrates (n=125, F1,124=3.68, p=0.057, r=0.17). However, at r2 values of only 3-4%, relatively little of the total variation is explained by substrate composition. There was no correlation with stream wet width (p=0.96, r=0.004) that would have confounded the other correlations. The correlation with substrate might actually have been stronger than noted, but I had used a standard “fish” definition of gravel (4-64 mm) (RISC 1999) when I should have been splitting this group into fine to coarse gravels (4-32 mm) and very coarse gravels (32-64 mm). We frequently found tadpoles in very coarse gravels. While the correlation was made with visual estimates, I would not recommend visual estimates of substrate composition for long-term monitoring as they are not as repeatable between observers as Wolman pebble counts.

Channel morphology in cascade, step-pool or forced step-pool-cascade streams may have intrinsic periodicities to their step-pool ratios (e.g. Chin 2002) but the semi-random placement of LWD, and the subsequent occurrence of impounded pools, plunge pools and scour pools behind, around and under LWD (e.g. Buffington et al 2002) may be enforced


first, and then any such natural periodicity must reform between these obstacles if there is enough space and energy remaining to do so. Buffington et al. (2002) found that a minority of pools on streams up to 4% gradient were formed by steps—most were scour pools formed around non-embedded obstructions. Trying to monitor a stream to see which of these variables may be the most constant or consistent, or be used as some measure of stream stability, does not yet provide predictable and reliable indicators (although it might in the future, but only with focused studies, not as the result of long-term monitoring that has other aims).

In 2005, we found tailed frog tadpoles occurring in any and all microhabitats within alluvial reaches—plunge pools, scour pools, impounded pools, between step-forming clasts, in cascades (series of small steps and pools that do not span the stream width), or in any other microhabitat, as long as there were rocks large enough to hide under. We did not find it possible to precisely predict where tailed frog tadpoles would be found in abundance in any given sample segment or within any reach. However, my distinct impression was that small plunge pools dominated by very coarse gravels and small cobbles (i.e., step height usually <40 cm) below embedded LWD were the most consistently used sites containing the highest numbers of tadpoles. Unfortunately, we did not collect the data on a microhabitat basis and cannot analyze our data in a manner that would show this, but the point is that there are many different types of pools that tailed frogs will respond to differently.Channel Condition

The Channel Condition rating of Version 1 appears to have been made for this WHA monitoring, and appears to be, as yet, untested. It would require trials to show that all the sub-indicators are required to make the full assessment, i.e., some may not be necessary, and it would require trials to show that it measures what it purports to measure reliably and predictably. Some of the sub-indicators also appear to be complex and very reliant on assumptions that may, or may not, fit these streams, e.g. critical discharge. Ratings of individual sub-indicators require assessment of Low, Moderate and High far too often without having baseline data sets to be able to say what these levels actually are in these streams, e.g. how many steps make them “numerous”, how many pools make them “few”, what depth is “low” scouring depth? While theodolite measurements of step and pools of a given reach will give a good picture of the streambed which will allow documentation of any changes that should occur in the future, the lack of broad-scale baseline studies will make any such changes observed difficult to interpret in tailed frog terms. I think that before any commitment is made to such intensive data collection that a multi-year pilot project should demonstrate that the results of an intensive step-pool analysis will be applicable to WHA monitoring. (Perhaps the Rocky Mountain Tailed Frog WHA monitoring program could be that pilot project?)

Version 1 tries to assess channel condition very simply (in one question instead of belabouring the issue with 15 questions), but at the risk of getting vague and inconsistent observations recorded in a haphazard manner:“record evidence of channel disturbance, such as age and type of riparian vegetation, presence of vegetation trimlines, sediment levees, aggradations or terraces, presence and age of tree scarring, woody


jams, avulsions, braiding, root scour, stem burial in zones of deposition (e.g., fans).” (p 31, bullet 5).

The FREP Riparian Monitoring (June 2005) poses 15 key questions designed to determine if significant impacts have occurred after timber harvest adjacent to a stream. Questions 1, 2, 3 and 4 specifically relate to channel condition and are appropriate (with a few qualifications, e.g. split gravels into 4-32 and 32-64 mm classes for Q4) for tailed frog streams at every stage of the WHA monitoring process. If there has been timber harvesting or road building within the management area or the WHA or adjacent to the WHA, then additional applicable questions may be 8, 10-15. Not all will be applicable because the WHA has a designed 30-m reserve zone, so that large impacts adjacent to the stream are not expected. Question 9 (invertebrates) will be applicable, and will quickly be answered when searching for tailed frogs. Q9 only needs answering if tailed frogs are not found, because tailed frog tadpoles are likely just as sensitive to stream conditions as the invertebrates.Recommendations

For Rocky Mountain Tailed Frog extensive monitoring, or for Coastal Tailed Frog intensive monitoring, a very detailed set of measurements related to stream structure and function could be measured as outlined in Version 1. But if protocols are nested in a hierarchical fashion, then perhaps there will be the opportunity to collect detailed data on some reaches, or in some years, but not necessarily at each monitored WHA. The protocol does not need to be rigid, but once data has been collected at a site, it will need to be collected in a similar way in the future if one wants to make comparisons with that data.

As part of extensive monitoring for Coastal Tailed Frog WHAs, I recommend that the following minimum stream conditions be measured on the monitored reach in every case: Channel pattern (TM, ME, IM, IR, SI, ST) and confinement (EN, CO, FC, OC, UN)

o see RISC Fish and Fish Habitat Inventory,o confinement may include valley-bottom to channel ratio.

Assess channel condition using Q 1-4 of the FREP Riparian Protocolo Add Q8-15 if there has been logging within the management zone of the WHA,

road or skid-trail crossings of the WHA, or logging adjacent to the WHA. Water and air temperature at several times of day during site visit,

o can be compared to long-term baselines if these are locally available. Bankful width and wet width as a minimum.

o Channel depths, largest stone moved by water (D90), and gradient added as time permits.

o Approximate gradient can be estimated from TRIM, but field measurement on stream centerline is preferable.

o Measured at minimum 5 points, or can be measured at randomly selected sample segments, but channel depths need to be measured at pool outflows.

o see FPC Channel Assessment Procedure Field Guidebook. Streambed substrate composition

o Grain-size distribution—Wolman-type pebble counts (phi or phi/2 classification)


measure at least 100 grains selected regularly or randomly a number of protocols exist (e.g. 5-points across where stream widths are

measured, zig-zag bank-to-bank step toe counts) but one should be selected that can be integrated with sample segment analyses if possible,

may want to stratify sampling so that at least 100 grains are selected from pools (see Montgomery and Buffington 1999).

o Embeddedness collected on same grains as above for grains >64 mm. Photo documentation—not intended to be strict photo point monitoring but meant to

assist any person evaluating the monitoring to visualize site conditions.o Upstream (as a bare minimum) integrated with location of random sample

segments, but selection on a regular basis (e.g. every 10-m on 100-m reach) along monitored reach would be preferred,

o Both stream banks and riparian stands, streambed, and canopy (vertical) could be included,

o 28mm lens (65o horizontal angle of view on 35-mm camera, or equivalent on digital cameras) is useful for upstream photos, but wider angle-of-view is necessary for meaningful photos of banks and riparian stands.

Operationally, approximately ≤half day would be devoted to measuring the above indicators, and ≥half day for counting tailed frogs. Channel measurements and any photo documentation would be undertaken on the first pass up a stream while running a tape upstream as the randomly selected tailed frog sampling segments are flagged out on the streambank. Sampling tailed frogs would be during the second pass up the streambed.

Additional data that could be collected for intensive monitoring as part of a more detailed assessment of channel condition, or on a few reaches as part of extensive monitoring, or as part of an intensive monitoring pilot project, could be just as proposed in Version 1 using theodolite surveys. However, I would caution based on my 2005 stream observations that many pools on these small streams are likely to have been formed by scouring underneath and/or around suspended or pitched LWD, rather than over steps. Consideration for type of pool and source of pool formation is important to add to the considerations. Terminology of pool and channel sequences needs to be defined as part of the data collection since various sources use different definitions (e.g. see Grant et al 1990, Buffington et al. 2002).

I also would think that rigorous photo monitoring points might help information collection, although since they are not quantitative they are not necessarily easy to compare and interpret. Video monitoring from helicopters has been applied to fish streams (see RISC standards) but I have not seen any long-term evaluations of those projects. This might be useful (at stream level—not form a helicopter) for tailed frog streams if all that is wished is a quick reference for the stream to determine what type of changes may have occurred in the future. However, there are no standards or protocols for such monitoring, and a pilot project would be required to determine if it could be useful, or if it might be too hard to interpret quantitatively.

DATA HANDLING


As it stands, the routine indicators are in various shapefile sets covering all 15 WHAs in the east Cascades. In a shapefile set, the dBase file is the data storage file, the rest of the files are for spatial locations. A format needs to be developed for reporting and for storing this data, and a data depository for long-term storage of all data gathered, calculated and/or collected.

I have put the background, routine, and extensive data in the following shapefile sets which are all in B.C. Albers: (These are just the names I happen to have used, they could and/or should be changed and standardized.)Background Data:

ASTR_merritt_1996-2002.shp-- Point shapefile of TCS and random reconnaissance tailed frog surveys in the Merritt TSA. See Gyug (2000, 2001, 2002) for data collection and analyses. (This data was also given to CDC, but they may have discarded a lot of the stream data.)

Routine Data:

WHA_stream_profiles.shp-PolylineZ shapefile used for stream profiles. Elevations added from Gridded TRIM DEM. Streams start at Meter 0 at high end. Included in file is Meter of upstream end of WHA, meter of downstream end of monitored reach, meter of downstream end of WHA, and meter of downstream end of basin (which = total length of stream). These are TRIM lengths, not actual measured stream centerlines.

WHA_stream_profile_points.shp-- PointZ shapefile converted from vertices of stream profiles polylineZ theme. Includes nearest vertex to WHA start and end, monitored reach downstream end, and other TCS points. Used for export into other graphing programs (e.g. Excel).

WHA_Basins.shp- Polygon shapefile of watershed boundaries. Includes WHA name, area, and (as km2 and % of basin) area of water, area of land, forest<30 years old with and without non-forest, forest >100 years old, land>60% slopes, H90, Elev of bottom of basin, Melton’s R, Road length in basin, Road density, Road crossings of streams, road crossing density/km2, total TRIM stream length, type of bedrock (volcanic, intrusive etc), rock subtype, % of each BEC variant in basin.

WHA_streams2_2005.shp- Polyline of the part of the TRIM stream within the WHA. This was the same base used for creation of the WHAs. If this base was inaccurate, then the WHA will be inaccurately mapped (which was found in one case (3-014) where the TRIM stream was an old streambed in an alluvial fan rather than the current stream—this would have to be corrected). This file contains, stream length, watershed area, major drainage name and stream name, Elevations of top and bottom of WHA, gradient from TRIM, gradient as measured on stream, data from previous TCS studies including dates, bankful width, number of TCS, number of tadpole and adult tailed frogs observed in total, and per TCS, presence of fish, FRPA stream classification, FDP cutblocks in basin at time of WHA establishment, and other comments.


WHAs_2005.shp-- Polygon shapefile of the official WHA boundaries including reserve and buffer zones as on the MOE website. I have joined with all the information as on WHA_streams2_2005 above, and also added length and % non-forested and young forest adjacent to WHA boundary perimeter, general aspect of WHA streamflow (e.g. NE), primary and secondary BEC variant, TRIM stream order(s) of WHA, and NTS 1:50,000 stream order(s) of WHA.

WHA_basin_streams_age.shp-- Polyline shapefile of TRIM streams in each basin intersected with forest cover age/non-forest polygon shapefile to determine the length of streams in basin bordered by non-forest, young forest, mid-age forest and mature forest.

WHA_roads2003.shp-- Polyline shapefile of roads in each WHA basin. Developed from North Cascades Grizzly Recovery Strategy road layer based on TRIM and on FC roads, with many manual corrections to lines and to roadtypes. Includes all haul roads, even if deactivated. Does not include roads beyond the last landing (skid roads) which are very inconsistently mapped by TRIM.

WHA_road_xings.shp-- Point shapefile of all stream/road intersections in basins based on TRIM streams and WHA_roads2003

Extensive Data UTMStarts.shp—Point shapefile of Downstream starting points of WHAs and of

monitored reaches. Includes the UTMs of these points for entry into GPS units manually to find points in the field (if necessary—usually automated download used that automatically converts projection). This file has been corrected to reflect the actual monitored reaches based on GPS readings (averaged for as long as 1.5 hours depending on signal reliability). Generally accurate to 20-m for points based on TRIM, and to 10-m or less for GPS’d points. Downstream end of monitored reaches also marked by wooden stakes on both streambanks.

ASTR 2005 Field and Analysis Data.xls-- Excel file containing all extensive data collected at WHAs in the Merritt TSA in 2005. This is not spatial information but can be correlated with each monitored reach in the UTMstarts shapefile. Contains location in each monitored reach (to the meter from meter 0 of the monitored reach, air and water temperatures, bankful and wet widths, and tailed frog observations.

Photos Right now the photos are jpgs in one directory with sub-directories for WHA and then for

each monitored reach in a WHA. At each photopoint (the start of each 5-m sample segment), I used a 28-mm equivalent

lens to take photos of 1)a notebook page to show the location, 2)the left bank (looking upstream, which is opposite to the traditional way of naming left and right as you look downstream), 3)upstream, 4)the right bank, 5)downstream, 6)streambed with scale measure, and 7)canopy (straight-up vertically using bubble level). Almost all photos taken from eye-height unless this was impossible for some reason. Canopy photos were taken from height of 1.5-m.

Each photo has been renamed according to: ASTRWHAX-YYY-Z000Alocatn.jpg where X-


YYY is the WHA number, Z is the monitored reach designator if there was more than one on a WHA, 000 is the distance in m from the downstream end of the monitored reach, A is the sample segment level (see companion document), and “locatn” is a 6-character name for the photo e.g. __left, upstrm, etc.

REACH SELECTIONI discuss in some detail in the companion report how one might monitor a single

WHA. It all depends what types of frontier, core or transient reaches are in the WHA, and whether a single monitored reach can be considered representative of an entire WHA. If not already done previously, a first step in routine monitoring would be an initial stratification into reach type. This may or may not require field verification depending on the previous level of knowledge of a WHA. Some WHAs were based on only one time-constrained search (TCS), others on a whole series of TCSs.

For tailed frogs, 100-m is a practical minimum for a monitored reach (see companion document). Generally, adequate stream reaches for sampling stream morphology are con-sidered to be 20-30 times the bankful width to provide consistent results. This reach length would be about 100-150 m for an average 5-m wide stream that is occupied by tailed frogs and included in a WHA. Therefore 100-m (or longer) is an appropriate monitored reach length.

In the absence of any other reason for selecting a site (principally difficulty of access), a reach starting 100 m upstream of the downstream end of the WHA should be selected as suggested by Version 1. If any other site is chosen for monitoring, it should be chosen randomly from within the portion of the WHA that one wishes to sample. If, however, the question is about the state of an entire WHA, then reaches must be identified and stratified first, based on both tailed frog reach types, and on morphological bases, and perhaps on stand history adjacent to the stream, and then sites randomly (not regularly) selected for sampling from within individual reaches within the WHA.

We semi-permanently marked the downstream end of the monitored reach with 24” wooden stakes hammered into the streambanks above flood lines on each side of the stream. GPS readings will guide surveyors to within 10-20 m of these sites, and then actual site must be relocated using the stakes. Other methods of semi-permanent marking are possible including tree blazes, aluminum tagging and/or flagging tape, but whatever is used must be recorded so the next surveyors know what to look for.

LITERATURE CITED

Note that most RISC/FPC/FRPA documents have not been cited directly here. See SRM/MOF/MOE websites.

Buffington, J.M>, T.E. Lisle, R.D. Woodsmith and S. Hilton. 2002. Controls on the size and occurrence of pools in coarse-grained forest rivers. River Research and Applications 18:507-531.

Chin, A. 2002: The periodic nature of step-pool mountain streams. American Journal of Science 302:144–67.


Dupuis, L. and P. Friele. 2002. Distribution of Ascaphus montanus in the Yahk River and neighbouring watersheds. Report to Tembec Industries and Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Compensation Program. Cranbrook and Nelson, BC. 31pp.

Dupuis, L.A., F.L. Bunnell, and P.A. Friele. 2000. Determinants of the tailed frog’s range in British Columbia. Northwest Science 74:109-115.

Forest and Range Practices Act Resource Evaluation Program (FREP). 2005. Protocol for conducting routine and extensive effectiveness evaluations for tailed frog wildlife habitat areas: Version 1. Draft report prepared by L. Dupuis and P. Friele for the FRPA Forest Resource Evaluation Program. Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection and Ministry of Forests. Victoria, BC.

Grant, G.E., Swanson, F.J., and Wolman, M.G., 1990. Pattern and origin of stepped bed morphology in high gradient streams, western cascades, Oregon. Geological Society of America Bulletin 102: 340-352.

Gyug, L.W. 2000. Tailed Frog Inventory, Year 2000, Merritt Forest District. Report prepared for B.C. Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks, Kamloops, B.C.

Gyug, L.W. 2001. Tailed Frog Inventory, Merritt Forest District: Project Report 2001. Report prepared for B.C. Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks, Kamloops, B.C.

Gyug, L.W. 2002. Tailed Frog Wildlife Habitat Area Proposals, Merritt Forest District. Prepared for B.C. Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection, Kamloops, B.C.

Henderson Environmental Consulting Ltd. 2001. Stream Temperature in the Spius Creek Watershed Second Year Results: 2000 summer /fall. Unpublished report prepared for Aspen Planers Ltd. Merritt Division, Tolko Industries Ltd. Nicola Valley Division, Weyerhaeuser Canada Ltd. Merritt Division, Merritt, B.C.

Jones, J.A., Swanson, F.J., Wemple, B.C. and Snyder, K.U. 2000. Effects of roads on hydrology, geomorphology, and disturbance patches in stream networks. Conservation Biology 14: 76-85.

Maxcy, K. 2003. Indicators and methods for effectiveness monitoring of tailed frog wildlife habitat areas. Report prepared for Biodiversity Branch, Ministry of Water, Land, and Air Protection. Victoria, B.C.

Metter, D.E. 1968. The influence of floods on population structure of Ascaphus truei Stejneger. J. Herpet. 1:106-106.

Montgomery, D.R., and J.M. Buffington. 1999. A procedure for classifying textural facies in gravel-bed rivers. Water Resources Research 35(6):1903–1914.


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