The Scope of Work and budget presented in this document represent the activities associated with the Coeur 'd Alene Tribe's resident fish enhancement project on Hangman Creek within the Spokane Sub-basin corresponding to the contract period May 1, 20011 to April 30, 2012.  Total amount of this budget request is $284,108.  Project 2001-032-00 has entered the Implementation Phase of the Project after an Assessment Phase starting in 2002.

Objectives include:
o Identify if naturally reproducing rainbow trout in Hangman Creek within the CDA Reservation are Redband trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss gairdneri)..
o Determine areas that are in need of restoration to supply spawning and rearing habitat for Redband and other naturally reproducing trout.
o Develop an educational outreach program to facilitate a “holistic watershed protection process.
o Implement a habitat/in-stream restoration strategy that will provide self-sustaining, naturally reproducing, and harvestable populations of native trout.
o Implement a monitoring and evaluation program to determine the effectiveness of habitat/in-stream restoration project.


The Hangman Creek watershed has experienced land use changes that have resulted in degraded in-stream habitat for fish and other aquatic species.  Conserving habitats in the upper tributaries is a priority along with increasing distribution. The primary method of accomplishing this will utilize beaver. Beaver influenced channel and floodplain morphology and vegetation historically, but alteration of their habitat and trapping have substantially reduced their influence and the ability for their populations to rebound.  The absence of large wood as a dam foundation and impacts to the availability of suitable dam-building material in the riparian zone have influenced the resilience of beaver dams currently, which tend to blow out during high flow and/or ice melt.  If conditions could be made more favorable for their re-establishment, it is likely that channel conditions and in-stream habitat could be restored closer to the pre-settlement state, thereby restoring fish habitat, the riparian zone, and the floodplain in the process.

Reaching the goals of the objectives include the following techniques:

1) Providing designs and oversight for future restoration to occur in 2012-2014: WE C will provide contractor designs for projects for a Conceptual Restoration Design for Sheep Creek Allotment 336 and 340 for both restoration of hydrologic and riparian enhancement utilizing beaver.  WE D provides for a contractor riparian enhancement design for Mission Creek, Allotment 632. Both of these designs are follow up to a report provided by Herrera Environmental Consultants , entitle "Recommendations for Beaver Habitat Restoration in the Upper Hangman Watershed". We expect beaver activity will raise the stream banks to normal hydrologic function. With that in place riparian restoration can proceed to ultimately provide better canopy and bank stabilization. With a healthy riparian complete with species that beaver need, we can expect stable conditions

2) Long term restoration in the current SOW includes native plant protection and site prep in WE E where existing plantings need watering, and weed control.

3) For sites lacking cold water habitat with adequate complexity we will use several methods to give the existing a jump start while long term restoration measures proceed.
    WE F provides food and dam building materials for beavers to provide agradation to stream channels. This will improve channel/floodplain connectivity
    WE G, LWD Placement provides a temporary fix until expected recruitment potential of LWD is realized,  

5) WE J to install a Pit tagging system will improve on our fish migration monitoring that is currently inefficient because of small numbers of fish trapped, and repair and maintenance being so costly. This tagging system will be in full use by the beginning of the next contract (summer of 2012) when we begin backpack shocking. Fish sampled in the winter/spring of 2012 will use the Pit tag system.

6) Provide Public Outreach Activities in WE R to educate  the public on project's objectives and benefits of restoration.  


This project will be working with it's sister project (2001-033-00) administered by the Coeur d 'Alene Tribe's Wildlife Program to restore Hangman Creek's streams and wetlands. 2001-033 is currently managing a property purchased downstream of the priority area of the Fisheries portion 2001-032-00. The primary goal of 2001-033-00 is to purchase easements on priority lands for restoration.