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| Fly fishing and fish habitat on the world famous Bow River, seen here near Canmore, Alta., has been seriously affected by silt from a faulty TransAlta hydroelectric facility. Craig Douce, Globe & Mail |
NOTE: This Globe & Mail article from the weekend makes reference to the problems being caused to the Spray River cutthroat trout by the breakdown at TransAlta’s Canyon Dam.
Species recovery plan in motion for Alberta’s cutthroat trout
DAWN WALTON
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
Published Friday, Aug. 05, 2011
Simple pleasures once came with fishing for westslope cutthroat trout.
The brightly coloured fish, dotted with black speckles and so-named for the red-orange streak that runs under its mouth, swims and spawns in the cold freshwater rivers in some of the prettiest and most rugged places in Alberta. Cutthroats were once so plentiful that they could be carted away by the wagonload.
“They are pretty eager to hit a fly – dry fly or wet – they are easy to catch,” said Dale Meier, a long-time fly-fishing guide in the Rocky Mountains around Canmore, Alta. “We fished for them all the time back in the ’80s – the good old days,” he added.
But the truly good old days went back even farther than that.
When the railway came in 1885, so did over-fishing by irrationally exuberant anglers who employed everything from nets to dynamite. Industry soon saw the potential to harness the region’s waterways, and hydroelectric dams were built throughout the trout’s native range in southern Alberta, including the Rockies. But that flooded trout habitat and wiped out spring spawning grounds.
Meanwhile, misguided attempts to restock the province’s water bodies with exotic species such as rainbow and brook trout have muscled out and cross-bred with the native cutthroat populations.
“It’s extremely, extremely dire for them,” said David Mayhood, an aquatic ecologist Freshwater Research Ltd., who has reported on the cutthroat’s plight to both the federal and provincial governments.
Currently under way is a federal-provincial species recovery plan, which is expected to be completed this fall. But saving the cutthroat from oblivion won’t be easy, when man-made hazards lurk everywhere. A faulty hydroelectric generator, for instance, has left one cutthroat population in peril.
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