Growth

Background

In the mid 1990s BC Hydro began operating Hugh L. Keenleyside (HLK) Dam to reduce dewatering of Mountain Whitefish and Rainbow Trout eggs.

The primary goal of the Lower Columbia River Fish Population Indexing program is to answer two key management questions:

What are the abundance, growth rate, survival rate, body condition, age distribution, and spatial distribution of subadult and adult Whitefish, Rainbow Trout, and Walleye in the Lower Columbia River?

What is the effect of inter-annual variability in the Whitefish and Rainbow Trout flow regimes on the abundance, growth rate, survival rate, body condition, and spatial distribution of subadult and adult Whitefish, Rainbow Trout, and Walleye in the Lower Columbia River?

The inter-annual variability in the Whitefish and Rainbow Trout flow regimes was quantified in terms of the percent egg dewatering as greater flow variability is associated with more egg stranding.

Background

The key management questions to be addressed by the analyses are:

1. Is there a change in abundance of adult life stages of fish using the Middle Columbia River (MCR) that corresponds with the implementation of a year-round minimum flow?
2. Is there a change in growth rate of adult life stages of the most common fish species using the MCR that corresponds with the implementation of a year-round minimum flow?
3. Is there a change in body condition (measured as a function of relative weight to length) of adult life stages of fish using the MCR that corresponds with the implementation of a year-round minimum flow?
4. Is there a change in spatial distribution of adult life stages of fish using the MCR that corresponds with the implementation of a year-round minimum flow?

Other objectives include the estimation of species richness, species diversity (evenness) and the modeling of environmental-fish metric relationships and scale age data. The year-round minimum flow was implemented in the winter of 2010 at the same time that a fifth turbine was added.

Background

The Kokanee Age Structure Population Analysis (ALUMON #6) is a multi-year study to address potential impacts of reservoir operations on the reservoirs’ kokanee (Oncorhynchus nerka) population (Andrusak 2014). As part of the Alouette Reservoir Water Use Plan (WUP), the study’s focus is to address whether the current kokanee population is recruitment limited and if any identified recruitment limitation is related to BC Hydro operations.

The management questions outlined in the WUP terms of reference were as follows:

1. The size-at-age of the kokanee population remains stable, or decreases with time once the standing crop has stabilized with the annual addition of fertilizer.
2. Drops in fry abundance, relative to estimates in previous years and to that predicted by estimates of mature kokanee, are uncorrelated with the extent of the reservoir fluctuations during the spawning and incubation period.
3. Whether drops in fry abundance persist through time and cause an impact on the abundance of mature kokanee.

Background

In the mid 1990s BC Hydro began operating Hugh L. Keenleyside (HLK) Dam to reduce dewatering of Mountain Whitefish and Rainbow Trout eggs.

The primary goal of the Lower Columbia River Fish Population Indexing program is to answer two key management questions:

What are the abundance, growth rate, survival rate, body condition, age distribution, and spatial distribution of subadult and adult Whitefish, Rainbow Trout, and Walleye in the Lower Columbia River?

What is the effect of inter-annual variability in the Whitefish and Rainbow Trout flow regimes on the abundance, growth rate, survival rate, body condition, and spatial distribution of subadult and adult Whitefish, Rainbow Trout, and Walleye in the Lower Columbia River?

The inter-annual variability in the Whitefish and Rainbow Trout flow regimes was quantified in terms of the percent egg dewatering as greater flow variability is associated with more egg stranding.

Background

The key management questions to be addressed by the analyses are:

1. Is there a change in abundance of adult life stages of fish using the Middle Columbia River (MCR) that corresponds with the implementation of a year-round minimum flow?
2. Is there a change in growth rate of adult life stages of the most common fish species using the MCR that corresponds with the implementation of a year-round minimum flow?
3. Is there a change in body condition (measured as a function of relative weight to length) of adult life stages of fish using the MCR that corresponds with the implementation of a year-round minimum flow?
4. Is there a change in spatial distribution of adult life stages of fish using the MCR that corresponds with the implementation of a year-round minimum flow?

Other objectives include the estimation of species richness, species diversity (evenness) and the modeling of environmental-fish metric relationships. The year-round minimum flow was implemented in the winter of 2010 at the same time that a fifth turbine was added.

Background

The key management questions to be addressed by the analyses are:

1. Is there a change in abundance of adult life stages of fish using the Middle Columbia River (MCR) that corresponds with the implementation of a year-round minimum flow?
2. Is there a change in growth rate of adult life stages of the most common fish species using the MCR that corresponds with the implementation of a year-round minimum flow?
3. Is there a change in body condition (measured as a function of relative weight to length) of adult life stages of fish using the MCR that corresponds with the implementation of a year-round minimum flow?
4. Is there a change in spatial distribution of adult life stages of fish using the MCR that corresponds with the implementation of a year-round minimum flow?

Other objectives include the estimation of species richness, species diversity (evenness) and biomass and the modeling of environmental-fish metric relationships. The year-round minimum flow was implemented in the winter of 2010 at the same time that a fifth turbine was added.

The data were provided by Golder Associates.

Background

The large, piscivorous Gerrard Rainbow Trout of Kootenay Lake support an important recreational fishery. Intermittently, since 1966, length, weight, fecundity and scale information has been collected from individual fish.

The primary questions the following analyses attempt to answer are:

What is the relationship between fork length and a) weight and b) fecundity?

How does body condition vary by year?

How does growth vary by year?

In addition the analysis asks

Are trends in growth and condition related to trends in kokanee abundance?

Background

In the mid 1990s BC Hydro began operating Hugh L. Keenleyside (HLK) Dam to reduce dewatering of Mountain Whitefish and Rainbow Trout eggs.

The primary goal of the Lower Columbia River Fish Population Indexing program is to answer two key management questions:

What are the abundance, growth rate, survival rate, body condition, age distribution, and spatial distribution of subadult and adult Whitefish, Rainbow Trout, and Walleye in the LCR?

What is the effect of inter-annual variability in the Whitefish and Rainbow Trout flow regimes on the abundance, growth rate, survival rate, body condition, and spatial distribution of subadult and adult Whitefish, Rainbow Trout, and Walleye in the LCR?

Background

The Kootenay Lake Exploitation Study is a multi-year fish tagging program to estimate the proportion of large rainbow and bull trout that are caught by anglers versus die of natural causes on Kootenay Lake.