Torgilsrudsälven, Naturreservat

Free-flowing watercourse with a high degree of naturalness.

Torgilsrudsbäcken is one of the county's most valuable watercourses, with important structures such as overgrown rocks, stream banks, enclosures, rocky bottoms, boulders and large stones, flood zones, dead wood in the watercourse and oxygen-rich fast-flowing and sometimes rushing water. The watercourse flows through both forest and agricultural areas. There used to be rafting and there are a lot of cultural traces in connection with the dam at Björnerud, including remains of a smithy, rafting, mill and settlement.

Animals and plants

There is a population of reproducing river pearl mussels in the Torgilsrudsälven. The species has high demands on its environment and is therefore classified as EN, critically endangered, by the Species Data Bank. Rejuvenation requires reproducing populations of salmon or trout, a permanent water flow, relatively high water velocity and clear, oxygen-rich, nutrient-poor water with stable pH conditions, conditions that are met in Torgilsrudsbäcken.

Another species with high demands on its environment is the crayfish, with threat category CR, critically endangered. In addition to high demands on the habitat, the crayfish is sensitive to crayfish plague and predation by mink.

The availability of dead wood in the watercourse is a prerequisite for the critically endangered (threat category EN) loggerhead shrimp. The loggerhead is a small moss that grows on hard dead wood that is occasionally flooded. It can be found next to watercourses and ponds in shady locations and it and other species with similar habitat requirements are threatened because wooded shores with a lot of dead wood have declined and continue to decline.

On land, green shield moss can be found growing on stumps, coarse roots and logs of various tree species. The species is protected.