Working with partners such as the local agencies, timber operators, other NGOs, private contractors and the City of Cannon Beach, TU’s science team completed an assessment and set of recommendations focusing on habitat restoration and stewardship projects in the 1,000-acre Ecola Creek Forest Reserve. Using our Conservation Success Index, we produced the Ecola Creek Native Salmonid Habitat Assessment.
This was the first watershed application of TU’s Conservation Success Index and went into use immediately by the City of Cannon Beach as it shaped its management planning for the Ecola Creek Forest Reserve in 2013. The main coastal cutthroat habitat recommendation for Ecola Creek that emerged from the TU assessment – large wood placement projects in the lower watershed – quickly became the first large wood placement project application. Partners at the Ecola Creek Watershed Council successfully secured funding for a helicopter wood placement project from the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board.