Fall Creek Bull Trout Recovery
A coalition of government, industry, NGOs, and academia work to conserve Fall Creek’s bull trout.
Southwest of Rocky Mountain House in Fall Creek, a small population of native bull trout is at risk from cumulative effects in the area. With Freshwater Conservation Canada leading efforts to inspect and reclaim unofficial stream crossings in the area, Fall Creek was chosen by a coalition of fish scientists for a first-of-its-kind in Alberta: bull trout range expansion stocking. The group is composed of ourselves, the Alberta Conservation Association, departments of the federal and provincial governments, Freshwater Conservation Canada, and West Fraser, which provided funding for the project through the Forest Resource Improvement Association of Alberta.
Range expansion stocking reduces the risk of local extirpation for small fish populations by establishing a new sub-population in a previously unoccupied part of their range. At Fall Creek, bull trout have been limited to the lower reaches by a large waterfall, leaving upper section of this watershed naturally fishless. The Fall Creek project team is working to establish a new sub-population of bull trout above the waterfall, using multiple methods. The Water and Fish Program’s Sam Chevalier is doing a Master’s project tracking the effectiveness of each method. Successful methods could be replicated at other appropriate locations.
In 2025, we installed temperature dataloggers to confirm that it is suitable bull trout habitat and help select good sites for the stocking. In mid-September 2026, the team collected gametes from 12 bull trout caught at lower Fall Creek. Half the fertilized eggs were brought to a fish hatchery, and the other half were distributed among Remote Site Incubators and deployed at six sites in upper Fall Creek. The team will return in spring 2027 to check the success rate and test more range expansion stocking methods, including releasing the fry reared at the hatchery.
The Alberta Conservation Association, Alberta Environment and Protected areas, Alberta Forestry and Parks, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Freshwater Conservation Canada, FRIAA, fRI Research, West Fraser, and the University of Calgary begin working together on the project.
Watershed-scale preliminary fish habitat remediation plan created to document impacts and guide habitat rehabilitation in upper Fall Creek.
ACA leads a resurvey confirming a low bull trout population below the falls and none above.
FCC leads work to collect temperature data to inform future conservation stocking.
First temperature data processed, analyzed, and reported. Monitoring will continue throughout the project.
This University of Calgary project will track the effectiveness of different conservation stocking methods in Fall Creek.
Gametes collected from bull trout in lower fall creek; 48 incubators with fertilized eggs deployed in upper fall creek
