5 Recommendations

A major challenge in advancing fish passage restoration is the complexity of working across jurisdictions and with multiple stakeholders—rail and highway authorities, forestry ministries, licensees, and private landowners. These partners are often being asked to accommodate priorities that originate outside their mandates and budgets. Convincing them to invest in difficult, high-cost interventions—like modifying crossings or relocating infrastructure—requires navigating uncertainty about costs and ecological outcomes, as well as a disconnect between the benefits to watershed health and the internal pressures or performance goals of these agencies. It’s a tough ask: to take on massive, uncertain projects when they’re already stretched thin with their own responsibilities.


Fish passage restoration across British Columbia is further complicated by the legacy of infrastructure deeply embedded in the landscape. Roads, railways, highways, community infrastructure and private assets often constrain floodplains and disrupt natural hydrological processes. While targeted repairs to individual barriers are essential, they won’t resolve the broader systemic issues without rethinking and restructuring how infrastructure interacts with watershed function. Loss of riparian vegetation and intensive beaver management only add to the degradation. Addressing these challenges means making strategic, well-communicated choices—picking battles carefully, building trust, and staying committed to a longer-term transformation.


While preliminary top remediation priorities are provided by watershed group, these rankings are inherently subjective and can depend on the capacity and willingness of infrastructure owners and tenure holders to support implementation—both financially and over the often multi-year project timelines. In practice, we must often act opportunistically, pursuing simpler, lower-cost options to maintain momentum and achieve near-term progress.


Government, community groups, landowners, non-profits, industry and other stakeholders should work collaboratively to address high and moderate priority barriers identified in Table 4.2. Although the table presents many options - currently - linked reports specify whether each site is a low, moderate, or high priority. Progress on any front is meaningful, and aiming to remediate at least one high-priority site per year per watershed group is a practical and effective approach.


To enhance fish passage restoration in the FWCP Peace Region:

  • Maintain strong partnerships to support funding, site selection, remediation, and monitoring through adaptive management informed by traditional knowledge and real-time data.
  • Prioritize detailed assessments in areas with blockages and high habitat potential, especially near McLeod Lake.
  • Use climate modeling to prioritize crossings that enable access to cold, drought-resistant habitats.
  • Secure financial commitments for Fern Creek (PSCIS 125261) remediation despite uncertainties in harvest planning. Canfor has procured preliminary engineering designs for a replacement clear-span bridge through internal funding. Replacement of this crossing is a high priority, as Fern Creek is a large system likely free of other anthropogenic fish passage barriers.
  • Continue effectiveness monitoring at key sites using fish sampling, eDNA, PIT tagging, temperature data, and aerial imagery.
  • Continue to develop a cost-effective monitoring framework to assess productivity gains from improved passage.
  • Collaborate with WLRS, UNC, local fisheries experts, FWCP, and the CEMPRA Project working group.
  • Utilize environmental DNA (eDNA) to better understand bull trout and Arctic grayling habitat use at both potential and remediated sites. This will refine prioritization and assess fish passage effectiveness.