Online Engagement

The TSSC used two online tools to gather information on salmon and their habitats, as well as recommended actions for the Thompson-Shuswap Salmon Ecosystem Action Plan.

Spatial information shared through the salmon habitat mapper has also been incorporated in to the TSSC Data Explorer.

Salmon Habitat Mapper

The Salmon Habitat Mapper tool was developed and hosted by the Pacific Salmon Foundation (PSF) to display available salmon distribution and habitat spatial layers. The mapper also allowed participants to add comments to incorrectly labelled features and submit missing information.

Participants were asked the following:

• Are there areas of known salmon and steelhead occurrence that are not included on the current map? What are we missing?
• Are there locations of important salmon or steelhead habitats such as known spawning and rearing locations, groundwater upwellings, large woody debris structures, pool habitats, and intact riparian areas?
• Do you have updates where the information shown is outdated? Is any of the information shown inaccurate?

These submissions validated our understanding of where salmon are within the Thompson-Shuswap and helped shape our understanding of how recommended actions could benefit salmon populations.

Thompson-Shuswap Recommended Actions Survey

The Recommended Actions Survey was used to request new information from users on specific project ideas and areas that would benefit from restoration.

Participants were asked to provide any available information on the following:

• Site-specific locations for actions noted broadly in earlier watershed reports and assessments.
• New actions that have not yet been identified.
• Locations of additional problems that affect salmon and steelhead habitat.
• Innovative and ecosystem-wide solutions to address these problems.

Submissions received in the Recommended Actions Survey contributed to the Recommended Actions chapter of the Ecosystem Action Plan.