Assessment of Potential Changes in Bull Trout within the Kakwa Watershed Over the Past 20+ Years: Influence of anthropogenic activities on fish occupancy
How are human activities affecting fish populations?
A 2005 study found a 24–43% decline in bull trout occurrence in the Kakwa Watershed, and attributed it to forestry activities. However, there are other important landscape changes that were occurring at the same time, and might have contributed to bull trout distribution, as well as the natural ecological distribution of the species. This multi-year project examines how all the different land-use activities in the past two decades have affected fish populations, in particular bull trout.
In 2023 and 2024 our team, together with collaborators from Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Alberta Environment and Protected Areas, the University of Calgary, and the University of Manitoba re-visited all 172 sites to quantify the populations in each section of the watershed. This created a long-term, spatially distributed dataset spanning nearly 30 years, providing a rare chance to relate fish population change to changes in forest cover, oil and gas exploration, regeneration and reclamation.
In 2025, while manuscripts were in preparation, the team did an additional survey of the watershed’s headwaters to confirm a small but apparently self-sustaining population of salmonids – non-native rainbow trout – as well as the availability of suitable, undisturbed habitat for a potential bull trout conservation translocation.
Kissinger and crew from Fisheries and Oceans Canada sample 43 sites between Grande Prairie and Grande Cache.
Water and Fish Program, University of Calgary, University of Manitoba, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, and Alberta Environment and Protected Areas team up to finish sampling efforts at all 172 sites.
Sampling data submitted to the provincial database; analysis in progress.
The team works on reports and papers to share results.
The team does an additional survey at Kakwa and Babette Lakes for habitat conditions and fish populations present.
The results of the headwaters survey are shared.
