1 Introduction

The health and viability of freshwater fish populations can depend on access to tributary and off channel areas which provide refuge during high flows, opportunities for foraging, overwintering habitat, spawning habitat and summer rearing habitat (Bramblett et al. 2002; Swales and Levings 1989; Diebel et al. 2015). Culverts can present barriers to fish migration due to low water depth, increased water velocity, turbulence, a vertical drop at the culvert outlet and/or maintenance issues (Slaney, Zaldokas, and Watershed Restoration Program (B.C.) 1997; Cote et al. 2005). As road crossing structures are commonly upgraded or removed there are numerous opportunities to restore connectivity by ensuring that fish passage considerations are incorporated into repair, replacement, relocation and deactivation designs.

The Society for Ecosystem Restoration in Northern BC (SERNbc) is working together with the McLeod Lake Indian Band, the Peace Region Fish and Wildlife Compensation Program (FWCP), the Provincial Fish Passage Technical Working Group (FPTWG), road/rail tenure holders and other stakeholders/partners to prioritize, plan and fund the restoration of fish passage at road crossing structure barriers within the Parsnip River, Carp River and Crooked River watershed groups.

This project builds on Society for Ecosystem Restoration Northern BC (SERNbc) work in 2019 - 2020 (A. Irvine 2020), 2021 - 2022(A. Irvine 2022) and 2022 - 2023 (Allan Irvine and Winterscheidt 2023).

Through this year’s project activities (2023/2024) we engaged numerous project partners and were able to identify, complete and catalyze fish passage restoration activities at multiple priority sites.

Through the ongoing development of open source analysis, data presentation and project collaboration tools we are identifying new restoration opportunities, clarifying restoration benefits, communicating with the broader community and implementing on the ground works.

This document can be considered a living document. Version numbers are logged for each release with modifications, enhancements and other changes tracked here with issues and proposed/planned enhancements tracked here.