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Marcel Macullo shows one of the brook trout caught in a net
in Hidden Lake. Once all the non-native fish have been removed, Parks Canada
will re-introduce westslope cutthroat trout to the lake. LARISSA BARLOW/ BANFF
CRAG & CANYON/ QMI AGENCY
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Invasive fish removed from Banff lake
Teams creating haven for cutthroat
trout
By Colette Derworiz,
Calgary Herald
September 21, 2012
The fishing at Hidden Lake isn't so good these days, but
Shelley Humphries and Marcel Macullo wouldn't have it any other way.
For the past three months, Humphries and Macullo - along
with a team of Parks Canada scientists and volunteers from groups such as Trout
Unlimited - have been ridding the alpine lake of the invasive brook trout.
"The number of fish we're catching has been less and
less," Macullo, an aquatics technician, says Thursday as he sits in a
belly boat and checks one of the 13 gill nets set up around the 13-hectare lake
in Banff National Park. "We're catching fewer adult fish and we're
catching more juvenile fish."
Minutes later, he catches a small brook trout in the net -
one of about 20 he expects to catch all day, down substantially from the 150
the team was removing from the lake daily earlier this summer.
Since the project started 13 months ago, the team has caught
almost 1,900 brook trout in the lake and another 600 in the creek by netting,
electrofishing and angling.
The multi-year project by Parks Canada scientists aims to
completely remove the invasive species and create a refuge for the westslope
cutthroat trout in Hidden Lake and the Upper Corral Creek area, which is made
secure by a naturally occurring waterfall barrier downstream.
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