Collaborative Approach to Developing and Testing Habitat and Fisheries Monitoring Protocols for Pre- and Post-Culvert Replacement

The Bad River system is a sparsely populated, 1,000 square mile watershed in the Lake Superior basin of northern Wisconsin.  The Bad River watershed contains one of the most diverse assemblages of fish in the Lake Superior basin.  Many culverts in the watershed act as passage barriers to fish and other aquatic organisms, fragmenting habitat and isolating populations from critical spawning, rearing or feeding habitats. The Bad River watershed is also one of the largest contributors of sediment to Lake Superior, the clearest and cleanest of the Great Lakes. Poorly designed or installed culverts frequently wash out and stream banks erode damaging habitat downstream and contributing sediment to streams. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and local non-profit the Bad River Watershed Association established a Culvert Program in 2004 to address these concerns.   The Culvert Program is a watershed-wide effort that considers fisheries, habitat and hydrology in the overall goal to restore naturally functioning stream channels throughout the Bad River basin. To date, 13 culvert sites have been restored in the watershed, reconnecting 17.5 miles of habitat. Together, natural resource professionals from county, state, federal, tribal and collegiate organizations developed monitoring protocols to evaluate fishery and habitat response to culvert replacements, with the intention of providing meaningful information for adaptive management.  This presentation will describe lessons learned from monitoring efforts: what has worked, what hasn’t, and the resulting future direction of the program.