In 2005, I commenced a Master of Science at the University of British Columbia. I was accepted into the Department of Zoology by renowned ecologist and fisheries scientist Dr. Carl Walters. I became a student at the UBC Fisheries Centre under the supervision of Dr. Steve Martell. I wanted my thesis to be centered on the Elk River because of the increasing development pressures in the valley. The goal of the thesis is to determine how the populations of two species of fish, bull trout and west-slope cutthroat trout, are responding to these activities. I chose to investigate coal mining and the recreational fishery, two activities that I feel have the greatest potential to influence these fish in all aspects of their life cycle.
Open-pit mining operations occupy several tributaries in the upper Elk River drainage where both species spawn annually and where juvenile fish remain for several years until they reach an age when they begin to move out into the mainstem for the rest of their adult life. This is known as recruitment. Adult fish remain in the mainstem year-round except during these annual spawning migrations. This is known as the stock and it is the most vulnerable to the recreational fishery.
Dr. Walters, among other distinguished luminaries at UBC, developed a method of sustainable resource management in the late 1970s that has since become one of the most widely used resource management tools around the world. It is known as adaptive management and is an attempt to understand how complex and dynamic ecosystems respond to the treatment effects of individual management decisions. Fish within the Elk River system are highly mobile, but they are closed in by the dam at Elko, thereby preventing migration. So the system itself can be studied from within and the populations can be tracked over time and across the different spatial units. For instance, different tributaries and regulation zones in the mainstem are subject to varying degrees of fishing and mining activity. This investigation seeks to learn how the fish respond to those activities, which are considered to be the treatment effects.
In addition to these activities, it is important to remember that many different activities exist in this valley. Timber extraction and agriculture are two example of resource management activities that have existed for some time and no doubt have some form of an influence on fish populations. A relatively new player in the system is coal-bed methane extraction. Given the high degree of uncertainty with respect to the ecological impacts of this activity, it will be crucial to have an adaptive management plan in place so we can determine how such a new treatment effect will influence the Elk River system.
The purpose of my thesis is to lay the groundwork for an adaptive management strategy on the Elk River by initially learning about the current state of the populations of bull trout and west-slope cutthroat trout across the river system. From this point, it is hoped that a monitoring plan can be instilled to utilize the very same methods that I have developed for this thesis over the long term. If these methods are successful, then they can be maintained in the monitoring program. If not, then other methods can instead be sought out. In this way, the management strategy is also adaptive.
To address the effects of fishing in the mainstem, I have tagged and secondarily marked fish in the Elk River STUDY AREA from Line Creek to Elko. Within this section, there are five regulation zones that alternate between catch-and-release and harvest fisheries (refer to the Ministry of Environment's hunting and fishing synopsis). I am interested in deriving a population estimate of these species based on a mark-recapture method. Once fish are marked and released, the population can be repeatedly sampled by anglers to determine what proportion of the sample contains marked fish. Each time this is done, it is like adding another sampling replicate to the analysis. The more replicates obtained, the more accurate is the estimate. Each person that participates in the recapture is like a replicate, so the highest number people that contribute their catch results to this website is optimal.
In addition to your angling effort, I will be conducting a snorkel count of the entire mainstem from Line Creek to Elko as well as the lower section of Michel Creek. I will be counting fish and looking for tags in the same way that you will, except I will be using a different method. If a number of tags fall out, though, my estimate will be inaccurate because it is difficult for to me see the marked fin, so it will be important for all the participants to check for fin marks in order to determine the rate of tag loss. I encourage you to navigate around this website and familiarize yourself with all aspects of the research prior to commencing with fishing.
Remember, before you can begin submitting your catch data, you must first setup an account by logging in and creating yourself a username.
Best of luck, and thanks for logging in!!
