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Showing posts with label Strategic Plan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Strategic Plan. Show all posts
Monday, 29 June 2015
Sunday, 28 June 2015
Are you ready to try something new and fancy on your computer?
OK something a little more technological for all you night people up late because it was too hot to do anything earlier.
I've simply given you a link here (see below in red). It will show a narrated PowerPoint (I hope it works on everyone's machine who has Power Point loaded).
>>YOU MUST DOWNLOAD IT<<< It's 100 MB.
Once you've downloaded it, just open the file and click on the tab "SlideShow" and "From Beginning".
There are 44 slides. The first one has a photo by Lorne Fitch and some music by Richard Burke. You need to click on the little megaphone to hear his soundtrack. (You can see the little megaphone I'm referring to in this screenshot below).
Once you've listened to "Lost Creek", just advance to the next the slide. Don't jump out of your skin once the narration starts! Check your speakers for volume before you start.
If you don't want to hear the narration, just click the box "Use Presenter's View" under that same "SlideShow" tab. Under each slide then, will appear some accompanying sentences that you can read along with.
This particular PowerPoint is the Communications and Outreach Update from the recent AGM which celebrated OWC's 10-year anniversary. It will tell you a little bit about the Communications Strategy in general (how it ties in to the Strategic Plan), the new emblem, why you should care about Social Media (and why Facebook 'Likes' don't mean anything) - and bring you up to date about the Film.
Don't forget that the trailer for the Film is coming out very soon. Anyone who was at the AGM will have had a little taster, since we showed a clip of some of the footage there. As soon as that's perfect, I will be releasing it to you.
The link is below. Just copy and paste it into your browser:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6RQH-WTrQZ5M2hzbWlqTFQ4R0U/view?usp=sharing
Please let me know how this goes and if you enjoyed the presentation. There are a lot more we'd like to share with you, including some of the great presentations from this year's AGM. If there are technical glitches, well, please let me know about them too, so that I can make it easier for folks who want to tune in.
I've simply given you a link here (see below in red). It will show a narrated PowerPoint (I hope it works on everyone's machine who has Power Point loaded).
>>YOU MUST DOWNLOAD IT<<< It's 100 MB.
Once you've downloaded it, just open the file and click on the tab "SlideShow" and "From Beginning".
There are 44 slides. The first one has a photo by Lorne Fitch and some music by Richard Burke. You need to click on the little megaphone to hear his soundtrack. (You can see the little megaphone I'm referring to in this screenshot below).
Once you've listened to "Lost Creek", just advance to the next the slide. Don't jump out of your skin once the narration starts! Check your speakers for volume before you start.
If you don't want to hear the narration, just click the box "Use Presenter's View" under that same "SlideShow" tab. Under each slide then, will appear some accompanying sentences that you can read along with.
This particular PowerPoint is the Communications and Outreach Update from the recent AGM which celebrated OWC's 10-year anniversary. It will tell you a little bit about the Communications Strategy in general (how it ties in to the Strategic Plan), the new emblem, why you should care about Social Media (and why Facebook 'Likes' don't mean anything) - and bring you up to date about the Film.
Don't forget that the trailer for the Film is coming out very soon. Anyone who was at the AGM will have had a little taster, since we showed a clip of some of the footage there. As soon as that's perfect, I will be releasing it to you.
The link is below. Just copy and paste it into your browser:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6RQH-WTrQZ5M2hzbWlqTFQ4R0U/view?usp=sharing
Please let me know how this goes and if you enjoyed the presentation. There are a lot more we'd like to share with you, including some of the great presentations from this year's AGM. If there are technical glitches, well, please let me know about them too, so that I can make it easier for folks who want to tune in.
Thursday, 4 June 2015
Register for the OWC AGM - Celebrating 10 Years!
(Editor's Note: We'd sure love to celebrate our 10 years with you!
Please come on Tuesday, June 23rd at 8:30 to
the Readymade Community Centre
this year - it's just 10 minutes east of Lethbridge. See you soon :-)
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Friday, 8 May 2015
Alberta has shaken the blues and .... orange you glad we're in the rose of health?
In time for the weekend, something to think about ...
Well, we've done it this time - picked ourselves up, dusted ourselves off and made it to the polls in greater numbers than in the last 22 years. Premier-designate Rachel Notley could make the difference for some of the challenges our watershed is currently facing.
WPACs of Alberta (Watershed Planning and Advisory Councils) have an important role to play: to advise government. And we've been doing it a long time. Key pieces of research like the State of the Watershed Report and the Integrated Watershed Management Plans, as well as key input into the South Saskatchewan Rgional Plan have had much work - and much hope - put into them.
It was interesting to note that both rural and urban Albertans want change and are willing to work together. Combining the orange and the rose will make a brighter future for everyone who lives, works and plays in our beautiful and unique Oldman watershed. (Suddenly Jayme Cabrera Lopez' photo of the sunrise at the top of ths blog seems serendipitously appropriate.)
We look forward to the support of both NDP and Wildrose MLAs to make things different - and to make them better.
Here's what our Executive Director, Shannon Frank, had to say about the recent election and its implications for watershed management and health .... you may need to adjust your speakers a little ... have a peek at this recent video:
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Well, we've done it this time - picked ourselves up, dusted ourselves off and made it to the polls in greater numbers than in the last 22 years. Premier-designate Rachel Notley could make the difference for some of the challenges our watershed is currently facing.
WPACs of Alberta (Watershed Planning and Advisory Councils) have an important role to play: to advise government. And we've been doing it a long time. Key pieces of research like the State of the Watershed Report and the Integrated Watershed Management Plans, as well as key input into the South Saskatchewan Rgional Plan have had much work - and much hope - put into them.
It was interesting to note that both rural and urban Albertans want change and are willing to work together. Combining the orange and the rose will make a brighter future for everyone who lives, works and plays in our beautiful and unique Oldman watershed. (Suddenly Jayme Cabrera Lopez' photo of the sunrise at the top of ths blog seems serendipitously appropriate.)
We look forward to the support of both NDP and Wildrose MLAs to make things different - and to make them better.
Here's what our Executive Director, Shannon Frank, had to say about the recent election and its implications for watershed management and health .... you may need to adjust your speakers a little ... have a peek at this recent video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AAsJJ8-5QE <<< CLICK THIS LINK TO VIEW!!!
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We'd love to hear your thoughts about this topic!
Saturday, 21 March 2015
How Napi Helped Find the Oldman a Face in time for World Water Day
(Editor's note: Tomorrow, March 22nd is WORLD WATER DAY. What better occasion to release 'the NEW Oldman'? Please pardon me for going on about this from a number of angles - historic, philosphical, cultural and artistic - but this has been an image over a year in the making. We sure like it - we hope you do, too.)
Central to Communications and Outreach for the OWC is the invention of a new visual branding element - not a new logo, but something we can use in addition to our current logo - an image that immediately conveys who we are to the public at large.
There are a lot of perspectives to consider. For one thing, the OWC is now 10 years old, and the three blue letters in the current logo are instantly recognized by anyone familiar with our organization. But what about attracting a new demographic? Anyone unfamiliar with us isn't able to tell what our purpose is from that simple abbreviation.
There are a lot of perspectives to consider. For one thing, the OWC is now 10 years old, and the three blue letters in the current logo are instantly recognized by anyone familiar with our organization. But what about attracting a new demographic? Anyone unfamiliar with us isn't able to tell what our purpose is from that simple abbreviation.
A strong logo reflects an organization's values and embodies its goals. A tall order for a simple drawing, perhaps – but look at how powerful the Nike "Swoosh" is; or the Mercedes "Star". Those symbols have become synonymous with the organization itself.
Looking around at other environmental organizations, it seemed fairly straightforward: a mountain in the background, a stream running to the foreground, and a couple of evergreens to the side. But how would anyone distinguish us from countless other "conservation", "outdoor" or "water" non-profits? Clearly, we needed something unique.
In fact, the uniqueness of the Oldman Watershed is what has inspired this design. We have not only a great diversity in geography and flora and fauna, but a diversity of ethnicities and industries as well. Our watershed begins in some of the most beautiful mountains in the world, and travels out to rich grasslands – also one of the driest, flattest places in Canada.
Perhaps our biggest challenge, however, was embodied in the name "Oldman" itself. It practically begs anthropomorphization. According to many First Nations' accounts, the Oldman refers to "Napi", the Trickster, who the Creator tasked with making the Earth and its creatures. We couldn't use just any old man - and we needed to realize fully the implications for honouring First Nations. Our Oldman needed to embrace people of all cultures while still harkening back to his aboriginal roots.
Dan Wilton of Wilton & Wark had been awarded our RFP for web design and put his creative talents to work based on our sketches. He created an initial image based on the archetypal "Green Man" – a kind of nature spirit common to many aboriginal and early western cultures. We agreed that we needed a "Green-Blue Man" – a figure that would emphasize more clearly the natural connection to water.
What a great segue into the concept of a watershed! One of the OWC's greatest challenges is communicating to people what, exactly, a watershed is. The notion that what happens on the land is fundamental to both water quality and quantity is something we are constantly struggling with. Dan took the central role of trees to heart and depicted clearly how everything from the canopy to the root system is integral to watershed health.
The design is thus divisible horizontally in that everything above the eyes is terrestrial, and everything below it, aquatic.
Still, something was missing. We sent the image around to a focus group consisting of scientists, journalists, students, seniors, artists and communications professionals. It seemed to pass the test with flying colours – but not with the First Nations' representatives in the group. "Where are the animals?" they asked. Good question.
On this basis, we decided to drill deeper into the symbolism and I worked hard with the OWC team and our intern, Jayme Cabrera Lopez (an ace at Photoshop!), to develop the image further. It was natural to include fish – not just any fish – but the West Slope Cutthroat Trout that are both endangered and an indicator species in our watershed.
In terms of following best design practice, I insisted that our Oldman include a visual double entendre. "Hidden" in the tree canopy, there is a clever interpretation of another nearly extinct species - the Plains Bison. The design requires you to look – and look again, while still being instantly recognizable as pertaining to a conservation organization. We took care to ensure that the image was symmetrical, with the left half mirroring the right.
But how to finish the design? It wasn't coming together properly in the all-important "third-eye" area of our Green-Blue Man. We had the water, the land … but I realized we were missing the element of air: the celestial realm. Again, not just anything would do. An eagle – a solitary eagle – was needed to crown the image. After all, "Napi's Playground" up in the headwaters contains "The Place of Eagles" where thousands of golden eagles migrate to, up the crest of the Livingston Range each year. It was a fitting final touch.
The image swirls below with rounded, organic shapes that invoke images of water, moves the eye up to the delicate leaf patterns and more abstract formations, and further up into the more geometric branches and mountains.
The image swirls below with rounded, organic shapes that invoke images of water, moves the eye up to the delicate leaf patterns and more abstract formations, and further up into the more geometric branches and mountains.
Heartfelt thanks to Kyle Dodgson of Tinker Inc. for conjuring the perfect colour palette to match the vision. Colour carries meanings and communicates ideas. In this regard, we have been pretty clear about the traditional use of green and blue, while also including the distinctive, firey red strip under the throat of the West Slope Cutthroat Trout. The Oldman's eyes are warm and brown – just as those of the Blackfoot Napi would be. Like any great logo, it is still very versatile and functions well in grayscale. We can simplify it for use on a small scale – or we can use it in full detail for large posters. It is going to be a great teaching tool for both children and adults.
Best of all, this is a design that we developed ourselves. It won't get old and it won't fall out of fashion. It's ownable and uniquely recognizable. It can work with or without the current blue OWC lettering, much like the "Coke" bottle cap is an additional symbol to the traditional "Coca-Cola" lettering.
Corporate logos have been with us for a while now. The Nike "Swoosh" is often touted as the best example of a great logo: simple, successful and speedy. Think about that for a minute, though. When that logo was invented it was 1971. We were just ramping up the consumer identity and the advent of the computer increased exponentially our ability to gather intelligence about who was buying what.
Arguably, logos first hit the scene in Ancient Greece when rulers used cipher as a monogram on their coins. In the Renaissance, tradesmen used some kind of mark-pressing on their crafts (sometimes as simple as a thumbprint pressed into pottery). But it wasn't until the turn of the last century that "fancy script" became popular as an identifying ideogram (think: Coca-Cola). The "ad men" of the 50's that we have heard so much about (see the TV series 'Mad Men', for example) really set the stage for the corporatization of the logo in the '70s. Most of the major brands came out with their final logo iterations then.
Is the Oldman corporate? Is the OWC a profit machine? Is a watershed, perhaps, a little more complex than the goddess Nike's simple message of speed? Natural processes are slow and hard to quantify. Stakeholders in the watershed would seem the antithesis of corporate shareholders. In fact, watershed management and health could be said to be at odds with commodification in many ways.
There appears to be a universal yearning for some kind of offline authenticity and a deep search for connection to what makes us human. We want to become reacquainted with a spellbinding narrative that involves values and ethics and care apart from naked commercial value. Our design thus asks you to look, look again, reflect, and act.
But wait …. there is one more, all-important, element hidden in the design.
What do you see?
According to Blackfoot legend, Napi is a Trickster, a shape-shifter; at once a fish, a rock, a tree. Embodied in all the elements and all the creatures, Napi is everywhere. Thank you to our First Nations for reminding us of the wholistic perspective necessary to understand humans - and all living things - in the watershed. Thanks in particular go to William Singer, Lori Brave Rock, Randall Wolftail and Stanley Knowlton - and all the Elders with whom they consulted, for their help, advice and gentle teaching - in developing this image.
HAPPY WORLD WATER DAY!
Wednesday, 11 March 2015
Native fish – our very own aquatic ‘canaries in a coal mine’
(Editor's Note: Why is your clean, clear, drinking water threatened? And how does it depend on fish? OWC's Planning Manager, Connie Simmons, explains exactly what's "fishy" in the headwaters. Your comments are, as always, most welcome.)
The Headwaters Action Plan (HAP) is a key outcome of the Oldman Integrated Watershed Management Plan, and was developed with the input of key stakeholders and the public throughout 2013-14. The HAP developed targets, actions and recommendations for three indicators of headwaters health to focus efforts to effectively protect and maintain source waters and headwaters values.
One of these three indicators provided direction for action related to fish - and not just any fish, but a focus on two native species that are now listed as ‘threatened’ by the Government of Alberta: westslope cutthroat trout and bull trout.
With the ‘threatened’ listing, come Recovery Plans and a legislated requirement to safeguard the species from further population decreases, and to protect and restore critical habitats to support and ensure their continued persistence and recovery. Westslope Cutthroat Trout have an approved Recovery Plan, and a Recovery Plan for bull trout is currently being developed. (See: http://esrd.alberta.ca/fish-wildliditfe/species-at-risk/ )
Native fish need healthy source waters and headwaters to thrive, and source water and headwaters integrity directly link to sustainability of healthy streams and rivers that provide us with high water quality and sufficient water quantity – a critical foundation for sustainable human communities and economic stability.
The looming crisis with these two native trout species tells us that all is not well in the Oldman headwaters, or Alberta.
Development and recreation pressures, habitat degradation, fragmentation and loss, invasive species incursion (i.e. competitive or hybridizing species such as rainbow trout), climate change, and angling pressure have created a perfect storm of issues that threaten the continued existence of these key native fish species in Alberta.
This is our wake-up call – these native trout are truly our aquatic ‘canaries in a coal mine’ – telling us that all is not well, and that we need to pay attention, prioritize what to do, and then act with responsibility and solid scientific direction to ensure the continued persistence and flourishing of native trout in the strongholds of cold, clear mountain streams and lakes.
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Westslope cutthroat trout are listed as threatened by both the Government of Alberta and the Government of Canada. In Canada, westslope cutthroat trout are native only to the Bow and Oldman River systems.
Historically in the Oldman watershed, their populations extended from the high mountain creeks, rivers and lakes to as far as Lethbridge. But - that was then, this is now. WSCT have declined so precipitously in the last 50 years that they now are at around 5% of their former population numbers, and these remnant populations have retracted to the small and scattered streams in the highest reaches of the Rocky Mountain tributaries of the Oldman River.
Human activities were and continue to be the greatest threat to the persistence of WSCT remnant populations in Alberta. These activities include the historical introduction of invasive species (ie: stocking of rainbow trout hybridize with WSCT and reduce or exterminate pure strain populations); development/industrial pressures that adversely impact or destroy habitat; and consumption (angling).
This alarming trend is further exacerbated by the looming issue of climate change, when projected mean temperatures in summer of many streams, especially in lower elevation streams and lakes, will rise to a point that WSCT cannot continue to exist. High mountain streams with intact forests and riparian areas provide the foundation for the clear, cold, connected and complex aquatic systems that support WSCT.
If we want to have WSCT in the future, there is an immediate need to take greater care of these important remnant habitats – to protect, rehabilitate and restore, and to manage adverse and cumulative impacts in these mountain headwaters areas.
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Bull trout occur in all of the major watersheds of the eastern slopes in Alberta, but have experienced significant reductions in both range and numbers, including the loss of some populations. Historically, bull trout were estimated to live in approximately 24,000 stream kilometres in Alberta, but are now down to an estimated 16,000 kms. This is a 33% reduction in the extent of their historical range.
Bull trout in southern Alberta watersheds have had the greatest losses, including the Oldman, Bow and Red Deer rivers. Bull trout populations in the Oldman watershed have been decreasing due to increasing cumulative impacts of industrial and recreation activities in their historic range, including logging, gas exploration and extraction, off-highway vehicles use, livestock grazing and random access camping.
Recovery of bull trout will require conservation of healthy aquatic ecosystems, restoration and protection of degraded habitats, and the adoption of disturbance thresholds that will not be exceeded.
As a first step, Albertans need to be aware that the populations of native trout are in trouble and that action is needed to ensure healthy headwaters and source water native fish habitat. As a sharp lesson about the nature of cumulative effects that degrade native fish habitat and population persistence, Lorne Fitch put it most succinctly:
"Farmers, miners, off highway vehicle users, roughnecks, homeowners, politicians and a cast of thousands have devastated Alberta’s fish populations without ever catching or frying a single fish. Instead, large numbers of fish, populations of fish, and watersheds of fish were killed through habitat alterations, loss of critical habitats, water withdrawals, and pollution. It has been a death by a thousand cuts, not a thousand hooks. Individually there was no malice, spite or even intention – only the ignorance of fish ecology and cumulative effects."
Lorne Fitch (excerpt from essay ‘Two Fish, One Fish, No Fish: Alberta’s Fish Crisis’)
If we are able to secure healthy, productive headwaters and source water habitat for native fish, we are also helping to secure healthy and productive headwaters and source waters for all who need water in the Oldman watershed.
In addition to raising public awareness, a concerted effort to effectively manage cumulative development/use impacts, provide excellent conservation information to public and stakeholders, and work to address threats to the continued persistence of native trout is greatly needed in the Oldman headwaters.
The OWC Headwaters Action Team and partners are starting to address some of these concerns this summer (more on the Team and partnerships is coming in a future Blog!). Recreation user engagement programs in Dutch Creek will share information about critical habitat for westslope cutthroat trout and bull trout, and engage recreationists to seek solutions that will would help ensure continued native trout persistence.
Trout Unlimited (Oldman chapter) has taken the initiative to begin to work on riparian restoration and sedimentation issues in Hidden Creek – a sub-watershed just north of Dutch Creek and home to bull trout and westslope cutthroat trout. The Alberta Conservation Association is working on a more complete inventory of westslope cutthroat trout in the upper Oldman headwaters area, and will be doing population assessments in Dutch Creek, Hidden Creek and White Creek in 2015. Cows and Fish are working with the OWC to inventory riparian areas and flag areas that need focused restoration work in the form of restoration, and engagement of users to mitigate further impacts. South Saskatchewan Regional Plan sub-regional initiatives are underway with the Linear Footprint Management Plan and Recreation Management Plan for the Livingston and Porcupine Hills areas.
All of these initiatives are greatly needed, but we need a focused approach to preserving and extending critical habitat for native trout as an important iconic species, and a marker of healthy, productive headwaters and source waters in the Oldman watershed and beyond.
Bull trout - at home in cold, clear, complex and connected high mountain streams and lakes
Connie Simmons
Planning Manager
Monday, 23 February 2015
OWC's Planning Manager Connie Simmons on ... PLANS ... & ACTION!!!
(Editor's note: Thanks to John Stoesser of the Pincher Creek Echo for this article - and for championing a healthy watershed).
Around 75 conservationists, ranchers and people interested in the area's watersheds crowded into the Twin Butte Community Hall for the Nature Conservancy of Canada's 10th annual Eat and Greet evening recently.
Early in the evening jokes were made that the huge turnout was thanks to the delicious catering from Jeny and Phil Akitt of the Twin Butte Mexican Restaurant, but once dinner was over attention was focused on riveting presentations by members of the Oldman Watershed Council, the Waterton Biosphere Reserve Association and Cows and Fish.
The Nature Conservancy of Canada's 10th annual Eat and Greet at the Twin Butte Community Hall was chock full of information about the area's watersheds on Friday, Feb. 6, 2015. Representatives from the Oldman Watershed Council, Cows and Fish and the Waterton Biosphere Reserve Association spoke to the crowd. From left to right: Jenel Bode, Anne Stevick, Connie Simmons, Jen Jenkins, Tony Bruder, Wonnita Andrus, Kristi Stebanuk and Lorne Fitch. John Stoesser photo/QMI Agency.
The theme of the evening was protecting the headwaters and OWC planning manager Connie Simmons dove right into an update on the organization's Headwaters Action Plan and Dutch Creek Pilot Project.
"It's the doing that's so important," Simmons said. "We're going to be talking about collaborative partnerships and that's really where we have to get going."
The Oldman Watershed Council is a registered charity and one of 11 watershed planning and advisory councils in the province. They work under Alberta's Water for Life strategy.
"This is the way folks can actually be part of watershed management and planning and doing," Simmons said, noting that while the group receives some funding from the government they also raise exterior money.
The OWC studies water quality, water quantity and, most important to them, the health of aquatic ecosystems while also creating watershed health assessments and providing recommendations to any levels of government that makes decisions.
"We hope that they listen and take that information into consideration," Simmons said. "But most important we enable, and hope to enable change. Change is basically, education, engagement, encouragement in this great watershed community of the whole Oldman basin."
After creating a vision, state of the watershed report, a "10,000 foot" watershed view, risk assessment and priorities, the OWC will focus on studying water quality and emerging contaminants throughout the entire basin.
"It's daunting, it's very daunting," Simmons said. "So we're definitely going to need a lot of help from communities and community members."
Approximately up 90 per cent or more of the water that leaves the Oldman River originates in the headwaters region, which are located west of Highway 22 and extend south from Chain Lakes down into Glacier Park in Montana.
"I know it's an iconic landscape, very important to all of us and we care about it deeply," Simmons said. "It is so important... we have to take care of this. It's really an important region."
The OWC has combined science such as cumulative impact mapping and local input to create a plan for protecting the headwaters. "We didn't just do science," Simmons said. "We also did a lot of work with local knowledge. That's listening to you and the communities and it's absolutely important. So it wasn't just (science) it was a marriage between the two."
Some of the priorities that came out of the public meetings were fish populations, invasive species and linear features. "We want to explore options for recreation user fees, to fund enforcement, education and stewardship projects," said Simmons. "I can't underscore enough how every single community we talked to, when talking about impacts on the watershed, said, 'What are we going to do about the recreational pressures. We have to something but we have no enforcement for that." "The headwaters is fair game... they shoved everything down to this corner of the world and now we've got, oh my goodness, a bit of a management problem," she added.
Simmons showed a map of the Dutch Creek area where unregulated stream crossings are interspersed with bull trout habitat. The area is part of OWC's new Adopt A Watershed program."It's beautiful in there but it has pretty much every cumulative effect you can imagine. So that's why we chose it," said Simmons. This coming summer their plan is to make a difference on the ground in Dutch Creek and also turn that into a story and a guide for others interested in protecting their watersheds. "What can we start to do... to still provide good recreational experiences for folks while also looking after watershed health. It's a tall order but we have to start somewhere," Simmons said. "The recovery plans seem to be dead in the water, pardon the pun. So maybe they need a little kick-start," she said in terms of protecting bull and cutthroat trout.
Next up was Kristi Stebanuk, the new riparian resource analyst for Cows and Fish. She presented three digital stories, narrated slideshows, to the audience.
Jen Jenkins, a local rancher and communications coordinator for the WBRA gave an update on the group's new website and upcoming projects.
Tony Bruder, with the WBRA's carnivore working group, briefed the room on preventing livestock predation including the dead stock program.
Award-winning biologist Lorne Fitch finished off the evening with his presentation, Grandfather's Trout - Grandkid's Memories, a slideshow and accompanying stories of what fishing was like in southwest Alberta at the turn of the 20th Century. "We often look into that fog called tomorrow and we often don't turn our heads over our shoulders and look back onto the path called yesterday," Fitch said. "So I thought I would take you on a little retrospective journey throughout the watersheds."
According to archived records, NWMP in the Calgary and Pincher Creek areas noticed a difference in fish populations from 1876 to 1890. Fitch showed photos of anglers hauling over 40 pounds over cutthroat and bull trout from areas where they do not exist today.
"We need to be reminded of where we were in the past and what the potential is for the future," he said. "Because wildlife, including native fish, are part of our myths, they're part of our history, they're part of our lives, they are part of our landscapes. But they're also a measuring stick of the health of our landscape."
"When you have cutthroat and bull trout in your watersheds, it is the litmus test, it is the gold seal of water quality," Fitch, a founder of Cows and Fish, said. "Unfortunately these critters can slip to become only part of our memory and even worse, even worse, we may forget them altogether. That's why we need to keep these landscape albums alive. To remind us where we were and where we could be and where we need to be."
Monday, 2 February 2015
To view January's E-Newsletter, Tuesday, 25 November 2014
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