2018 to Present
For centuries, indigenous peoples of the North, including the Tataskweyak Cree Nation (TCN), relied on Sturgeon as an important subsistence harvest and cultur-al resource. TCN elders and resource users readily recall a recent past when sturgeon were widespread throughout the Churchill River and their aquatic habitat was pristine. However, following the implementation of the Churchill River Diversion and construction of Missi Falls Control Structure (MFCS) in 1976, sturgeon have all but disappeared from the Upper Churchill and have been rele-gated to the substantially dewatered Lower Churchill River. The reductions in flow downstream of the MFCS have caused widespread degradation and loss of aquatic habitat, and many areas that were once known by TCN as productive sturgeon fisheries may now harbor few (if any) sturgeon at all.
In close partnership with Tataskweyak Cree Nation, AAE Tech Services Inc. was contracted to carry out assessments of Lake Sturgeon abundance and recruit-ment within the Churchill and Little Churchill rivers, with the goal of developing more robust representations of sturgeon ecology and population dynamics with-in this system. In order to better understand the current trajectory of the popu-lation and the barriers to its recovery, with the aim to provide critical infor-mation to help guide management decisions for the conservation of this species.
2021 will mark the 4th year of the study, building off previous mark recapture studies in 2003 and 2014-2016, to date >2,200 sturgeon have been captured and tagged.
Working in partnership with Tataskweyak Cree Nation, AAE has provided the following:
• Non-lethal sampling of adult and juvenile sturgeon using gill nets;
• PIT-Tagging and Floy Tagging Sturgeon as part of mark-recapture study;
• Surgical implantation of acoustic transmitters into adult sturgeon;
• Tracking of sturgeon movement through the river system via acoustic telemetry receivers and didson sonar;
• Collection of ageing structures and analysis in the laboratory;
• Sturgeon population estimates in the churchill river system;
• Statistical Analysis to describe sturgeon condition and health, and the relationship between growth rates and length-at-age.
