Oregon Natural Desert Association
$20,000

The South Fork Crooked River is located 45 miles southeast of Prineville. It is a tributary of the Crooked River within the Deschutes River watershed. Riparian habitat and water quality were severely degraded by historic overgrazing and the extirpation of beaver in the early 1800‘s. As a result, deciduous woody riparian vegetation is absent from landscapes where it was formerly abundant and diverse, water temperatures frequently exceed critical thresholds for native fish (including resident redband trout), overall wildlife habitat quality is negligible, and the recreational values of the surrounding landscape are substantially diminished. To address these issues, ONDA is implementing a long-term collaborative strategy to re-establish riparian habitat on 10 miles of the South Fork Crooked River on public and private lands. This strategy involves seeking conservation land designations, conservation easements and public lands management improvements, coupled with active restoration focusing specifically on the targeted establishment of habitat capable of supporting three multigenerational beaver colonies. Habitat and hydrological conditions beaver create and maintain have been documented to address all of the habitat and water quality impairments listed above. Work began in 2015 and already includes successes including the planting of approximately 20,000 riparian plants, removal of 20 acres of riparian juniper, the exclusion of grazing from 4.75 stream-miles on private lands, improving grazing management on 5.25 stream-miles on public lands, and strategic land purchases. Collaborative work with the BLM, USFWS, NRCS, private land owners, Oregon Desert Land Trust, Oregon State University and hundreds of volunteers has been key to achieving these goals. The proposed planting work described in this application helps complete the intensive, dense planting of nine acres of habitat.