Feasibility Study to Develop a Lower Fraser Live Capture and Tagging Facility for Salmon


Year 2007
Organization LGL Limited
Project type Fisheries
FSWP funding source Living Rivers
Grant amount $357,713
Total project value $1,006,657
ID number

07LR8

Location: Fraser Valley, Mission, BC

Project Summary

LGL Limited will be developing a lower river live capture and tagging facility that will, in conjunction with catch monitoring, provide reliable species specific estimates of abundance for salmon returns to the Fraser River.  A combination of annual mark-recapture efforts using conventional external tags and periodic radio-telemetry studies to assess mark-recapture assumptions and the nature of any in-river losses, will provide managers with more reliable estimates of spawning escapement, harvest, environmental impacts and enroute losses.  The facility will also provide a continuous source of salmon for biological sampling to assess species and stock composition, fish health, size, age and sex composition.  It is anticipated that the complete facility design will include at least 3 large fishwheels distributed across the river channel in the vicinity of the railway bridge at Mission. LGL will conduct a thorough test of 2-3 fishwheels at the Mission Railway Bridge and all the operational components of the proposed live capture facility and tagging program during the peak salmon migration period from June-September 2007.

This project represents the first steps towards the development of a multi-species stock assessment and harvest monitoring system that will be beneficial for the management of numerous Fraser salmon stocks.  Reduced confidence in the Mission abundance estimates for sockeye, enroute losses between Mission and spawning areas, and the lack of in-season abundance estimates for several salmon species have increased the potential for over-harvesting Fraser salmon stocks.  The implementation of the proposed biological sampling, mark-recapture and fish tracking systems should provide substantial improvements to the in-season information on the abundance and in-river survival of Fraser salmon and reduce the potential for over-harvesting these stocks.

(project 07LR8)

Update:



Name:

Email:

Location:

URL:

Comment:

Remember my personal information

Notify me of follow-up comments?

Comments

Be the first to leave a comment on this page!