The overall goal of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes is the recovery of Chinook salmon and Steelhead within the Salmon River Basin and the Columbia River Basin with the approach to protect, enhance, and restore habitats to sustain and recover native aquatic and terrestrial species diversity and abundance with emphasis on the recovery and delisting of Endangered Species Act listed species. The goal is to enhance these species populations to healthy levels that support Tribal Treaty and public harvest goals.  The Tribes interest is the protection and restoration of natural ecological functions and habitats. The Yankee Fork Restoration Project’s implementation objectives are to 1) reconnect historic channel and floodplain interaction, re-establish dynamic channel and floodplain interactions where they have been disconnected through  anthropogenic disturbances; 2) Floodplain enhancement and instream complexity, Re-establish channel dynamics and floodplain interactions by improving floodplain patch size, creating or improving side channel habitats, planting appropriate vegetation, placing large wood for fish cover and complexity, and constructing instream structures; 3) Adaptive Management, Monitor rehabilitated areas, and modify past rehabilitation actions to improve and/or diversify habitats and processes to maximize fish benefits.
The Tribes fish and wildlife programs will work synergistically to improve habitat conditions and improve fish abundance.  The Yankee Fork Inter-Disciplinary team along with the Tribes, has determined the short and long term goals of the Yankee Fork: short term goals involve restoration actions through 2018 (utilizing the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes Accord funds), which include implementing projects from the Tributary Assessment and Reach Assessments that identified the Dredged sections of Yankee Fork (Bonanza reach and Pole Flat reach) the most impacted and altered, therefore having the greatest potential for habitat restoration. The team is working on other funding sources to supplement the costs of the larger projects within the YFSR; we have applied to other grants such as the IDEQ 319, Pacific Coast Salmon Recovery Fund, and Native American US Fish and Wildlife grants. Other short term goals are to finalize a solid RME plan for the Yankee Fork for habitat and wildlife. In 2015, the team will continue working on the long term goals to rehabilitate aquatic and riparian habitat in the Yankee Fork sufficient to increase abundance of salmon and steelhead populations to meet Tribal conservation and harvest objectives.
Summer 2013, the Yankee Fork Restoration Project went before NWPCC with a 2013 Geographic Review, GEOREV 2002-059-00 Lower Yankee Fork Implementation Plan 2008-2018, and had positive review to move forward with Yankee Fork rehabilitation projects through 2018; with this positive review the Shoshone Bannock Tribes Yankee Fork Restoration Project, other Tribal F&W projects and the YF Inter-Disciplinary team will work to implement projects within the Yankee Fork Salmon River drainage.  The Yankee Fork Fish Habitat Monitoring Plan (CHaMP) is part of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes’ Research Monitoring and Evaluation (RM&E) Plan that is being developed to support implementation of a comprehensive salmon and steelhead protection, restoration and mitigation program.  This Habitat Monitoring Plan specifically addresses the Yankee Fork Restoration Project and has begun summer 2013. Construction and enhancement was completed in fall of 2012 at Pond Series 3, creating side channel habitat; to determine the outcome of the actions of the creation of side channel, monitoring and evaluation tasks  begun in 2013.  The team implemented Pond Series 3 Side Channel in 55 days (within months of construction the side channel had Steelhead spawning and salmonid juveniles utilizing the channel); in 2013, the Pond Series 2 was completed in 2 weeks enhancing the pond series into side channel; and in 2014 the Preacher's Cove section was implemented in six days, utilizing trees, root rods and boulders to enhance channel diversity.
The Tribes is currently working collaboratively to produce a research, monitoring and evaluation for the Upper Salmon Basin, the project will use it specifically for the YFSR and all restoration actions completed.  This is a working document and is important to the Tribes; therefore, we are putting time and effort into the process. The project will be utilizing methods in parallel until completion of the RM&E. The Yankee Fork Fish Habitat Monitoring Plan will implement the Columbia Habitat Monitoring Program (CHaMP) sampling protocol and sample design.  CHaMP is a Columbia River basin-wide habitat status, trends and effectiveness monitoring program that was developed to capture habitat features that drive fish population biology in order to provide systematic habitat status and trends data.  CHaMP is being implemented in the Yankee Fork watershed to evaluate the status and trend (quality and quantity) of fish habitat conditions and assess the effectiveness of restoration activities. The Yankee Fork Habitat Monitoring study design will combine CHaMP with a modified before-after-control-impact (BACI) study design, used frequently for impact monitoring.  Fish habitat data will be collected at control and impact sites before restoration and after restoration activities. These sites will be determined by using similar geomorphic reach types as established by the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation, 2012b and 2012c).  The Lower Yankee Fork Implementation Plan 2008-2018 will inform the monitoring study design, specifically the spatial and temporal allocation of sites in the watershed. Fish habitat monitoring in the Yankee Fork will start in 2013 and continue through 2018, beginning with 25 sample sites and ending with 45 sites, based on the CHaMP three-year rotating panel design.  In 2013, six effectiveness monitoring sites and 19 status and trend sites will be sampled determined based upon planned restoration activities.  Although the Yankee Fork Restoration Project is not fully funding the CHaMP sampling protocol, the project is benefiting from the data collection of CHaMP, through the ESA habitat program, Shoshone Bannock Fish and Wildlife Department.  The project will benefit and assist where needed with snorkel and macro-invertebrate protocols.
The project will continue baseline data collection consisting of water quality data, physical and biological surveying, and permanent photo points. We will continue to collect data in the YFSR with the use of Sondes, temperature thermographs, discharge data-utilizing the USGS gauging station, and monitor fish activity/macro-invertebrate collections within rehabilitated/CHaMP sites. Water quality monitoring will include long term deployment of multi-parameter water quality monitors (Sondes) at three or more sites: Flat Rock, Bonanza Bridge, and West Fork Yankee Fork. The data collection of continuous water quality will begin April and continue through November. The sondes will measure: pH, conductivity, temperature, turbidity, and dissolved oxygen and is dependent upon the stream conditions and storm events.  Temperature data will be collected throughout the Yankee Fork and tributaries. The project installs water thermal data loggers beginning in April and retrieves them in November as conditions permit, and will be collecting data throughout the year, at various sites, commencing in February 2015 and continuing through January 2016. We will continue working with USGS to maintain the gauging station (13296200 Yankee Fork above Salmon River Confluence near Clayton, ID).  In 2011 a USGS gauging station was placed on the lower end of the Yankee Fork Salmon River; the USGS will maintain this station while publishing the data on the USGS website.
The project will continue to work with the Yankee Fork Inter-Disciplinary team (BOR, TU, USFS, SBT, USFW, and others) to update the “working" Yankee Fork Master Plan; prioritizing the enhancement of in-stream diversity, floodplain function, re-connecting tributaries, etc. Once again, the team has an opportunity to continue implementing a project in 2015, with the West Fork Yankee Fork Confluence project. This will include relocating the current West Fork confluence to near its historic connection, prior to dredging in the early 1900’s; additionally, leaving a side channel where the existing Yankee Fork Salmon River now flows, below the Preacher’s Cove section.  The West Fork Yankee Fork confluence project will be separated into two phases (2015-2016), to work in the dry creating channel and side channel.  The water will be released into the new confluence area late 2016. As a team, we are successfully moving forward with restoration actions within the Yankee Fork Salmon River; the Tribes have a long time understanding and previous commitments within the Yankee Fork drainage and look forward to continue working and having traditional and cultural significance increase within this drainage and throughout the Salmon River and Columbia River Basin.