Natural Values and the Conservation Context

The area surrounding Tatlayoko Field Station is a spectacular place to study, learn, and research.

Natural values for research and education

Largest intact roadless wilderness left in western North America south of 52 degrees latitude.

Juxtaposition of diverse habitat types along gradients of moisture, temperature, and elevation. These gradients are frequently rapid and extreme. Mount Waddington (at 4019 m the highest peak entirely within BC), for example, is 30 km from Knight Inlet. Another example: hemlock and cedar forests occur at the southern ends of Chilko and Tatlayoko Lakes, but 15 km to the north, the climate is semi-arid.
Undisturbed predator-prey trophic systems including all medium to large sized mammalian predators native to British Columbia.
Habitat for species-at-risk, including grizzly bear, wolverine, fisher, mountain caribou, marbled murrelet, tailed frog, and possibly others.
Broad, unroaded, low-elevation valley corridors through the mountains facilitating the movement of wide-ranging species between the central coast, southcoast, and interior regions of BC.
High value salmon spawning and rearing habitat.

Animal movement corridors – along valley floors, around the big lakes, in low passes between valleys, from valley bottoms to alpine.

Significant ungulate winter range habitats – deer, moose, mountain goat, mountain caribou.
Mountain caribou summer and winter habitat (Klinaklini and Atnarko headwaters, Rainbow Range, Satah Mountain).
Rare, dry-warm old-growth interior Douglas fir forests.
Extensive whitebark pine forests at higher elevations.
Grasslands and high diversity aspen woodlands.
Provincially significant integrated wetland complexes in upper Big Creek area – highly important for moose.
White Pelican nesting and feeding lakes.
Sub-alpine meadows and grasslands of Potato Mountain, with an unusual concentration of the cultural keystone species, Claytonia lanceolata (mountain potato).
Salmon/trout spawning habitat, including chinook, coho, bull trout, sockeye, Dolly Varden, steelhead and kokanee.
Unique wild/indigenous bull trout populations in the upper Klinaklini, Mosley, and Chilko watersheds – the largest bull trout resource in interior BC.
Migratory waterfowl habitat, including trumpeter swans, geese, other waterfowl and shorebirds.
Riparian habitats along the major rivers and their tributaries.

Nationally-significant IBA (Important Bird Area): Chilcotin Junction
Forestry no-harvest zones
Special management zones
Access management areas
Special wildlife management areas for mule deer, mountain goats, bighorn sheep, mountain caribou, grizzly bears, and marine species
First Nations conservancy areas: Nemaiah Aboriginal Wilderness Preserve; Elegesi Qiyus Wild Horse Reserve; and Dasiqox Tribal Park

In a transition zone: topographically, at the transition between the Chilcotin Plateau and the Coast Mountains; climatically, at the transition between the dry interior and wet coastal climates.

In the headwaters of Homathko River, one of four watersheds that rise near one another on the interior plateau and transect the Coast Mountains through low-lying valleys as they descend to the fjords of the BC Coast.
A few kilometres from Tatlayoko Lake, one of numerous lakes, large and small, that typify the transition zone. The large lakes include Chilko, Taseko, and Charlotte, as well as Tatlayoko. Chilko is the highest fjord lake in Canada (1175 m asl).
At the eastern fringe of the largest unroaded area in western North America south of 52 degrees latitude. This wild area spans the Coast Range, from the dry interior to the Great Bear Rainforest.
Approximately seventy kilometres from the highest mountains wholly within BC (Mount Waddington 4019 m) and some of its largest glaciers.
In the midst of a wildlife population with the full complement of species and intact predator-prey ecosystems.

Close to Chilko River, which is the site of one of the largest salmon runs on Fraser River. One of the largest concentrations of grizzly bears in North America occurs on the upper Chilko River each year in conjunction with the salmon run.

In the traditional lands of the Tsilhqot’in people. The western boundary of the recently established Aboriginal Title Area is a kilometre from the Field Station. Potato Mountain (Chinaz Ch’ez in the Tsilhqot’in language), geologically unique and of high cultural value, is nearby. Indeed, Potato Mountain is a significant part of the viewscape of the Field Station.
In beautiful Tatlayoko Valley, with its agrarian mix of ranches and small holdings nestled beneath the mountains. Tatlayoko is one of several small communities that center on the hub community of Tatla Lake, BC (area population approximately 400).
In the midst of an array of interesting transects for ecologists and climate scientists: low to high (sea level to top of Mount Waddington 30 km away); wet coastal to dry (318 mm annual precipitation at Kleena Kleene); warm to cold (cedar hemlock forests to IDF to pine to alpine).

Nuntsi Provincial Park (20,898 ha)
Patterson Lake Provincial Park (1595 ha)
Punti Island Provincial Park (12 ha)
Redbrush Provincial Park (1165 ha)
South Chilcotin Provincial Park (56,796 ha)
Ts’yl-os Provincial Park (233,000 ha)
Tweedsmuir Provincial Park – South (989,616 ha)
White Pelican Provincial Park (2763 ha)
Four ecological reserves – Big Creek (257 ha), Cardiff Mountain (65 ha), Doc English Bluff (52 ha), Ilgachuz Range (2915 ha)
Private land protected by Nature Conservancy of Canada (1011 ha), Nature Trust of British Columbia (857 ha), Ducks Unlimited Canada (199 ha), and Valhalla Foundation (97 ha)