Bear Creek Shellsburg

Sites that score between 51 - 70 are considered good. Fish (excluding tolerant species) are fairly abundant to very abundant. If high numbers are present, intermediately tolerant species or tolerant species are usually dominant. A moderately high number of fish species belonging to several families are present. The three most abundant fish species typically comprise two-thirds or less of the total number of fish. Several long-lived species and benthic invertivore species are present. One or more sensitive species are usually present. Top carnivore species are usually present in low numbers and often one or more life stages are missing. Species that require silt-free, rock substrate for spawning or feeding are present in low proportion to the total number of fish. Fish condition is good; typically less than 1% of the total number of fish exhibits external anomalies associated with disease or stress.

This location has been classified as a Reference Site. Reference sites represent natural stream qualities that are least disturbed by human activities within the watershed. These sites are then grouped by ecoregion to establish a benchmark against which other streams in the same ecoregion are compared.