Anna Halligan is the North Coast Coho Director for Trout Unlimited. For Anna, summer is restoration season in rivers up and down the Mendocino Coast such as the South fork of the Eel, Usal Creek, Noyo, Ten Mile, Pudding Creek, Navarro and Big River.
Most of the projects this year are some combination of road decommissioning and the reintroduction of large pieces wood into creeks to provide shelter for fish to rear or hide in. Halligan’s restoration projects also incorporate new understandings about the importance of floodplanes in the life cycles of fish. Restoration work often makes use of the same equipment as the Timber industry, excavators and D8s. Many of the equipment operators also work on logging plans.
Since the 1880’s, Mendocino County’s forests have been owned in large part by private timber companies. Over a century of industrial logging has had severe ecological consequences, especially for the historically abundant but now threatened and endangered salmon.
The last ten years has seen a shift in the depth of our understanding about how human activity impacts watersheds, and a growing sophistication in the work to repair and restore the damage that has been done. Mendocino county has become a leader in forest restoration efforts, and especially in salmon recovery.