Streamside restoration

Without healthy riparian (streamside) vegetation, streams die.

Streamside vegetation provides the absolute necessities for aquatic health:

• Cooling shade, essential for salmon and other fish

• Dead leaves, needles and insects that fall into the water and provide nutrients for the entire creek food chain

• Fallen branches and trees that create channel complexities, places where fish and other animals can rest, feed, and hide from predators

• Canopies and root systems that filter and store water for the stream

• An ideal soil chemistry for the stream’s needs (unless non-native plants and animals invade the riparian zone in significant numbers)

•  A buffer between the stream and the negative impacts of human development.

Cougar Creek is fortunate among urban/suburban streams in that its riparian zone is on the whole quite wide and well-vegetated, especially through most of the canyon from Nicholson Road to Westview, and in much of the Delta Nature Reserve. Nonetheless, there are many stretches that need our help – in particular those areas where development has encroached too far into the riparian zone, leaving insufficient vegetation.

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