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Vernon Streamside Planting
Ashton Creek students (Vernon, BC) restore stream habitat, replanting the stream-side with willow whips.
Choosing the Issue:
For many years students at Ashton Creek Elementary, in Vernon, BC, have been raising salmon fry in the classroom, and releasing them back into the wild. Students have developed a strong bond with these little creatures. They were concerned that the stream where the salmon were released was damaged due to erosion, silting and lack of stream-side vegetation, and would get too warm in the summer for the fish to survive.
What They Did:
Scientists at the Kalamalka Forestry Research Center provided expertise and plant material, and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Community Advisor provided funds for tools and permission to plant native plants. In the first few years, students planted 1-2 year old plants, which required care over the summer. Recently, they have planted mainly willow whips, which have been more successful.
From January to early March (when trees are dormant) students go out with hand clippers and collect willow whips. The whips are cut about a meter long, the top five centimeters are removed, and they are stored in plastic bags and either buried under the snow or put in cold storage. In late April, usually around Earth Day, the whole school goes planting. Students push the whip about one third to one half into the soft soil close to the water, and - using their heels - close in the hole around the top so that no air can get in. Older students go around afterwards and tug on the whips to make sure they are solidly planted.
What Happened?
For the past two years the school has planted the "Dale Channel," a side channel-rearing project on the Shuswap River twenty kilometers from the school. It was very rewarding to go back a second year and see the healthy willows, planted the year before.
» Case study: Streamside planting (pdf)
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