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In The News
Nash Stream Restoration Update - New Hampshire
12/1/2008
The Nash Stream Restoration Project is moving along well, and is particularly fortunate to have a great Project Team of TU, NH Division of Forests and Lands and NH Fish and Game Department.
In 2008, a large matrix of restoration options for the instream and riparian restoration of Nash Stream was developed, and work began in October 2008. It was anticipated that the bulk of the work between the former Nash Bog Pond Dam and the wooden bridge on the Nash Stream Road (3/4 mile) will be conducted in 2009. In this area, a combination of restoration techniques including the addition of large wood and large boulders into the Nash Stream and large wood in the floodplain.
In 2008, the second year of research on brook trout in the watershed began followed by a three year study funded by the US Fish and Wildlife Service investigating the effects of barriers (culverts and natural waterfalls) and stocking on the movement and genetic integrity of wild brook trout in the Nash Stream Watershed. This research is a collaboration between the USFWS, USGS Conte Anadromous Fish Research Center in Turner’s Falls, MA, and NHFGD.
In 2007, a small amount of tissue from about 800 wild brook trout was collected from downstream and upstream of several culverts and impassable waterfalls and from 50 hatchery brook trout. Wild and hatchery brook trout, slimy sculpin and longnose dace in Long Mountain Brook and wild brook trout and slimy sculpin were caught in Johnson Brook, and then inserted PIT tags into them. PIT tags require no battery, are very small (less than ½ inch long and only 1/16 inch wide) and inexpensive, making them ideal for studying movement of relatively small fish over several years.
The movements of tagged fish were tracked using both stationary and portable antennae. The stationary antennas were placed at the upstream and downstream ends of one culvert on each brook from August through November 2007 and May through November 2008 to specifically track fish as they moved (or did not move) through the culverts. The portable antennae were handheld units with which was used to scan the entire wetted area of Johnson Brook weekly from June 2008 through November 2008, and “wanding surveys” were conducted in the fall of 2007. Long Mountain Brook proved to be too large to use the portable antennae.
In 2008, a great deal of effort was dedicated to the portable tracking, and it was learned that slimy sculpin move very little, typically on the order of several feet over the spring, summer and fall. In sharp contrast, it was discovered that wild brook trout apparently migrate into Johnson Brook sometime between spring and early fall, spawn, and then in a mass emigration in November, move downstream out of Johnson Brook and into Nash Bog, a two mile long and ½ mile wide grassy, scrub/shrub wetland that is not the classic high-gradient brook trout stream. The replacement of the existing culvert on Johnson Brook will be swapped out with a small bridge in May 2009.
In late September 2008, the culvert in Long Mountain Brook was replaced, which was impassable at least to small brook trout and to all slimy sculpin and longnose dace. Wild brook trout were literally migrating upstream as work was being done on building the new culvert and rebuilding the natural streambed within it. Stationary antennae detected fish moving upstream through the new culvert within an hour of completing the culvert replacement, so it is obvious to us that they are indeed migrating.
In 2008, radio tags were inserted into 20 wild and 25 hatchery brook trout in Nash Stream, Farrer Brook and Silver Brook. This study was conducted by NHFGD. Fish were tracked starting in May and some from July through November 2008. It was quickly noted that some of this fish migrate very long distances, with one fish moving 10 miles upstream in less than 3 days, and other moving a mile or more in a day. Even though some of the fish did not move very long distances, it was typical for most fish to move around in within a ¼ mile or larger area.
For more information, please contact Jim MacCartney, River Restoration Specialist, at (603) 226-3436 or John Magee, Fish Habitat Biologist, at (603) 271-2744.
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