Resource Management

Rangeland Management

The Salmon-Challis National Forest has one of the largest rangeland management programs in the Intermountain West, administering grazing permits for more than 100 livestock grazing permittees. Click the link above to learn more and to access allotment information.

Minerals and Geology

Each year the Salmon-Challis National Forest hosts mining operators and visitors interested in exploring for minerals on National Forest System lands. Click the link above to learn more.

Invasive Species: Aquatics & Noxious Weeds

The Salmon-Challis National Forest is defending our public lands and waters against invasive species that threaten our ecosystems. Click the link above to learn more.

Timber Management

Timber management is an important component of productive forest resource management. The Salmon-Challis, Bridger-Teton and Caribou-Targhee National Forests combine to form the North East Timber Zone (NETZ). Click the link above to learn more. All timber sales will be advertised on this page.

The Inland Native Fish Strategy, Environmental Assessment, Decision Notice and Finding of No Significant Impact 1995 impacts several resources on the Salmon-Challis.

Watershed Monitoring Program 2023 Monitoring Report

The Yankee Fork, A tale of Tailings

The Yankee Fork Gold Dredge provided economic opportunity for westerners in the 1940s and 1950s, but it had a dramatic effect on the Yankee Fork, a small but important tributary of the Salmon River located in south-central Idaho. The work to enhance this critical fish habitat, which will help promote the recovery of ESA-listed Chinook salmon and steelhead, has resulted in the removal of some dredge tailing piles to reestablish more natural river channels and floodplains. But the Yankee Fork Gold Dredge and remaining diverse and wide-spread cobbles remind visitors of the dredge’s glory days. Visitors and future generations can view our unique shared history and landscape with greater understanding of the past in the Yankee Fork valley.

The Fix

In Idaho’s Upper Salmon River Basin, the Yankee Fork has long-suffered as a river which is unable to recover from dredge-mining and timber harvest that occurred during the area’s gold-rush, around the turn of the 20th century. Join in watching this chronicle of how a large collaborative group, including TU, has been working since 2009 to restore the habitat that the Yankee Fork’s declining salmon, steelhead, and native fish populations need for survival.

West Fork Yankee Fork Phase II Chinook and steelhead habitat improvement project.

Upper Yankee Fork Large Wood 2014 2015

Restoring the Yankee Fork of the Salmon river to natural levels of large wood to improve fish habitat for Chinook salmon, and steelhead, Cutthroat, and Bull trout. Project implemented during in 2014 and 2015.

Repurposing Forest Waste with a Mobile Pellet Machine

Video featuring Salmon-Challis National Forest Employee David Morris, a Central Idaho Resource Advisory Committee Project in partnership with Commandar Chassis and Lemhi County Economic Development Association

Preachers Cove Habitat Improvement Project

This video show a fish habitat restoration project on the Yankee Fork of the Salmon River. Project partners include: Bonneville Power Administration, Bureau of Reclamation, JR Simplot Company, Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, Trout Unlimited, and the Salmon Challis National Forest

Upper Yankee Fork Large Wood Restoration Project
Adding Large Wood to the Yankee Fork of the Salmon River for fish habitat restoration. Project partners include Salmon-Challis National Forest, Trout Unlimited, Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, and the US Bureau of Reclamation.

Features

Rangeland Management

The Salmon-Challis National Forest has one of the largest rangeland management programs in the Intermountain West, administering grazing permits for more than 100 livestock grazing permittees. Click here to find out more about our range management program and to access allotment-specific information.

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