Timber Harvest in the Oldman Headwaters: AWA’s Logging Review shows Widespread Disturbance of Trout Critical Habitat from Logging in the Eastern Slopes

August 17, 2026

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Wildlands Advocate article by Cameron Hunter, AWA Conservation Specialist

Read the PDF version here.

 

Introduction

Trout in the Oldman headwaters continue to be under pressure from persistent and cumulative land uses. Forestry and logging in the headwaters of the Eastern Slopes are playing a key role in the downfall of native trout species in Alberta. Leniency and complacency skip hand-in-hand down logging roads where issues such as missing stream buffers, improper stream crossings, and poorly planned roads contribute to the loss and degradation of native trout habitat. Logging causes changes in streamflow response and increases erosion and sedimentation, influencing channel form, structure, and stability. At the watershed scale, these impacts begin to combine and interact, resulting in cumulative effects.

What we did and why

To further understand the issues facing native trout, AWA conducted a review of timber harvest practices and applications of operating ground rules (OGRs) in selected watersheds of the Oldman headwaters, focusing on the Racehorse Creek and Livingstone River watersheds. Field data collection was conducted by fisheries biologist Matt Coombs, with desktop analysis and reporting support provided by professional biologist Lorne Fitch and AWA.

These watersheds were selected due to the presence of two native trout species designated under the Species at Risk Act (SARA) and Alberta’s Wildlife Act as Threatened: Westslope Cutthroat Trout  and Bull  Trout. The Oldman headwaters are home to the largest remaining connected habitat for Westslope Cutthroat Trout, and support most of the genetically pure fluvial populations (which spawn and develop in rivers and smaller tributaries) that remain in Alberta. These watersheds also host an important portion of the Bull Trout metapopulation upstream from the Oldman dam, and they contain identified critical habitat for both species. Destroying any part of these critical habitat areas is illegal under SARA.

Both species identified in these watersheds have seen concerning and drastic declines. As of 2019, Bull Trout and Westslope Cutthroat Trout have been extirpated from 85 and 71 percent of their former watersheds, respectively. This is of particular concern since trout are a primary indicator species of watershed and headwater health, as they require cold, clean, complex, and connected habitats for reproductive success and recovery. This is something we require as well for safe and clean waters in our communities.

Results

Our review was undertaken in 2025 and consisted of on-the-ground observations at 496 sites within and near trout critical habitat. Across those sites we found 667 issues showing failures to adhere to regulations under provincial timber harvest OGRs, SARA, or the Fisheries Act.

Issues were classified and then categorized into four major groups. The first was buffers, which accounted for 57 percent of the issues seen in the field (382 issues noted). Problems in this category included the complete absence of buffers (71 issues noted), buffers not meeting the OGR guidelines (46 issues noted), and buffers that did not meet requirements for critical habitat, which occurred at 219 individual sites, with some sites containing multiple issues. In some cases, we observed that buffer planning did not account for windthrow, uprooting or breakage of trees due to strong winds, and therefore were smaller than required widths (32 issues noted). In other cases, buffer boundaries were ignored, and large trees were cut within the flagged boundaries (6 issues noted).

The second most common category of issues involved erosion and sediment transport to watercourses, accounting for 29 percent of observations. These ranged from the complete absence of erosion control measures (85 issues noted) to insufficient controls (52 issues noted), to incorrectly installed or poorly maintained measures (44 issues noted). In some cases, erosion control measures were overwhelmed with sediment (12 issues noted).

Cutblock erosion and/or rutting, and sediment reaching mapped critical habitat, accounted for the issues found within the Erosion Sedimentation category.

We also looked at water crossings. During the review, we found that 41 percent of stream crossings we assessed showed evidence of erosion and sediment reaching streams mapped as critical habitat, which is a well-documented threat to trout survival and recovery. Fine sediment can degrade spawning habitat, reduce food availability, and increase mortality in juvenile fish. On top of this, for crossings that should have had effective erosion and sediment controls, 87 percent of the controls were either missing, ineffective, or lacked basic maintenance.

These findings brought up serious questions and concerns. There are questions around whether the most accurate geospatial data is being used to protect all watercourses, water features, and associated riparian habitat, and if these datasets are being treated as foundational planning tools applied in timber harvest and road layouts. Industry may not be consistently interpreting critical habitat as it is defined by Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) in their species recovery strategies guidance document. This may be causing streams that are unmapped not to be treated as critical habitat even when they fit the descriptions and interpretations set out by DFO. This leads to critical habitat buffers being selectively applied, or applied in the wrong location based on incorrect data. It also leads to misclassification of streams, and the existence of buffers of less than the required 30 metres width.

OGRs are presented as regulatory requirements intended to achieve expected results and outcomes. In part, they state that timber operations are to be managed in ways that protect water quality, water quantity, hydrologic function, hydrologic connectivity, and aquatic and riparian areas by preventing sedimentation, preventing soil and deleterious substances from entering watercourses, maintaining aquatic biota, conserving critical habitat for aquatic species at-risk, and maintaining the long-term integrity and productivity of that habitat. They also state that harvest area design should include protection of aquatic and riparian areas fundamental to “species of management concern.” On paper, this is impressive; on the ground, much less so, particularly where the Forestry Division can override the OGRs or use deviations to avoid responsibility.

The issues noted highlight how provisions of the Fisheries Act and SARA can be carelessly interpreted and weakly applied. This raises questions about whether timber harvest practices are currently in contravention of provincial and federal legislation and guidelines, thereby increasing risks to already imperilled native trout and their habitats. At many of the sites observed, the timber industry failed to meet even the minimal provisions of the OGRs. It is also unclear what degree and rigour of regulatory oversight is being exercised by the responsible agencies of the Government of Alberta and by DFO.

For more information on the sites assessed, you can visit our Logging Review Assessment Sites Map.

Conclusion

These findings add to a growing body of evidence from other conservation organizations, including recent work by the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society – Southern Alberta Chapter (CPAWS SAB), which documented similar concerns related to erosion, sedimentation, and loss of critical habitat linked to forestry activities in the Eastern Slopes.

Based on this evidence, we recommend that there be independent reviews of regulatory oversight, harvest planning standards, and the interpretation and application of SARA. We also recommend independent hydrologic risk and cumulative effects assessments. Forest management plans must be a cooperative effort by foresters and biologists. Also, there should be a pause on timber harvest expansion to allow for habitat and hydrologic recovery, as well as the establishment of “headwater havens” for selected watersheds to give priority to habitat protection over fibre production.

Observations from this review raise serious concerns as to whether the forestry industry is meeting even the minimal requirements of the OGRs. Permits are continuously given out by DFO to allow the destruction of critical habitat for logging. This shows an unfortunate lack of willingness to provide and enforce meaningful protections for species at risk trout.

As stated by Lorne Fitch, professional biologist and former fish and wildlife biologist, “The aquatic indicators of our stewardship ethic will continue to disappear — one bridge, one clear-cut, one logging road, and one federal permit at a time.”

AWA would like to thank the donors who made this review possible. Your concern about the state of our public forests and how they are managed enabled this review.