ABSTRACT
In 1984 the Deer Creek Group, a coalition of local landowners and managers, state agencies, fishing groups, and local Native American tribes, formed in response to concerns about declining fish populations as a result of timber harvesting activities in the Deer Creek Watershed of the North Cascades Mountains in Washington State. The group addressed these concerns through inventorying, monitoring, and identification of restoration opportunities throughout the watershed and then developed a restoration strategy. The focus of federal restoration efforts in Deer Creek over the last 10 years has been to reduce the impact of management activities and to promote the return of natural hydrologic and erosion processes. Restoration objectives included reducing coarse sediment delivery, promoting stream channel recovery and natural revegetation of riparian and floodplain areas, and restoring fish habitat by mechanically stabilizing hill slopes and streambanks. The Deer Creek watershed restoration program has been considered successful for a variety of reasons, and it demonstrates the role watershed restoration can play in a regional or provincial sustainable fisheries strategy to protect and restore west coast salmon and steelhead populations.
