Keifer Ecological Services

• Kinbasket Reservoir Revegetation Program
• Arrow Lakes Reservoir Revegetation Program
• Silviculture, Wildfire and Forest Stand Effects on Huckleberries
• Spalding’s Campion Inventory and Habitat Assessment
• MOE Elder Creek Prescribed Burn
• Spatial and Quality Attributes of Culturally Important Plants
• Rare Plant Propagation and Restoration, Waneta Expansion Project
• Whitebark and Limber Pine Restoration in BC
• Impact of Accelerated Timber Harvesting on NTFPs
• Aberfeldie Channel and Revegetation Program
• Effects of Mountain Pine Beetle on NTFRs
• Revegetation of Disturbed Wetlands in Westpath Expansion Area
• Managing Saskatoon and other Traditionally Important Plants
• Invasive Plant Inventories at Provincial Parks
• Profile of NTFRs in the Cascade Forest District
• Invasive Species Mitigation Practices after Forest Management Activities
• Ethnobotanical Inventory, Invermere
• Reconnaissance Level Wetland Testing on TaTa/Skookumchuck Range
• Revegetation Monitoring - Kootenay 230 kV System Transmission Line
• Cultural Plants of the Creston Wetlands
• Morels in the East Kootenay, BC

MOE Elder Creek Prescribed Burn

KES, through funding from the BC Forest Science Program, is leading a study in conjunction with the Ministry of Environment (MOE) to determine what conditions produce the best huckleberry sites to guide huckleberry management and restoration efforts.  This project seeks to reintroduce fire to Elder Creek with the goal of enhancing bear habitat through increased huckleberry production.

This project has the following objectives: 1) enhancing huckleberry productivity; 2) restore conditions suitable for whitebark pine re-invasion; and 3) reduce coverage of competing shrub and tree species.

The black huckleberry (Vaccinium membranaceum) is perhaps the most loved of the wild berries in the Kootenay’s by people and both species of our bears.  In order for grizzly bears to reproduce and survive the winter they must gain large amounts of weight, throughout the summer huckleberries are believed to be the key food source in the East Kootenay.  Huckleberries are widely known to benefit from fire and other forms of disturbance that reduce forest cover.  Prior to the era of Smokey the Bear and fire suppression, wildfires were allowed to burn freely over the landscape resulting in sizeable areas being burnt on a random basis.  Once we started aggressively fighting forest fires, a key result was that fires significance on the landbase decreased, while at the same time the impacts of logging increased.  This shift in disturbance patterns has led to many of the best huckleberry patches now being found in logged areas and a decline in huckleberry sites outside of logged areas. 

The Flathead Valley is well known for having a sizeable population of grizzly bears a species highly dependant on the productivity of huckleberries.  Dr. Bruce McClellan is a wildlife biologist with the Ministry of Forests and Range (MOFR) who has been researching the bear population in the Flathead since the 1980’s.  His research has documented a significant loss of bear habitat utilisation in Elder Creek a small drainage within the Flathead located between Sage and Kishenena Creeks.  He has observed a corresponding drop in huckleberry productivity over this time that most likely explains the change in usage.  Through Dr. McClellan’s research it has been recommended that this valley’s huckleberry habitat be restored through the use of fire.

Preliminary surveys of the huckleberry restoration area have also identified that stands of provincially blue-listed whitebark pine are common in the area.  This high elevation pine species is also an important food source for grizzly bears and other species of wildlife. Fortunately whitebark pine also benefits from fire, as its seedlings grow poorly in the shade.  The prescribed burn plan has been designed to retain whitebark pine trees on the landscape while sufficiently reducing forest cover to permit regeneration of both huckleberries and whitebark pine.

In order to accurately assess the benefits of this work over time, black huckleberry response will be monitored using the methods developed within the huckleberry productivity research (see Ethnobotany and NTFP Research Projects); and the whitebark pine response will be monitored using permanent monitoring stations established prior to implementation of the burn.

The implementation of this plan is agreeable to a number of concerned parties including wildlife managers, foresters, guide-outfitters, and trappers in the subject area.  The objectives are all achievable through the implementation of a prescribed burn, particularly if pre-burn fuel treatments are conducted.