It was the early 1990’s when concern over the decimation of Alberta’s bull trout populations reached a critical mass.  Fisheries biologists raised the alarm, rallying anglers and the conservation community to save the bull trout.  They hosted conferences and printed public awareness posters in an effort to pressure policy makers to enact regulations that would protect bull trout from overharvesting and habitat degradation   These advocates even mounted a campaign to convince the provincial government to name the bull trout as Alberta’s official fish.   But despite all this momentum, it still took almost three more decades for regulators to designate the bull trout as a threatened species under Canada’s Species At Risk Act.  Why did this take so long?  Peter Rodger is a Senior Species At Risk biologist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada.  Peter picked up the bull trout file when he moved to the department’s Winnipeg office in 2014.  Turns out, designating a species as threatened is an arduous, complex process that requires patience and cooperation between both federal and provincial regulators.  Journalist Cheryl Croucher spoke with Peter Rodger about the long slow battle to protect bull trout. 

(Duration:  53:33)

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WEBSITE: www.RestoryingBullTrout.ca

WHERE TO LISTEN:  Buzz Sprout, Apple, Spotify,  Overcast, Castro, Castbox,  Pocket Cast, Goodpods and Podfriend

FUNDING CREDIT:   Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada New Frontiers in Research Fund.     

The project is called: Plural perspectives on Bighorn Country: Restor(y)ing land use, governance, and bull trout population health in Alberta. 

The forest reserve along Alberta’s eastern slopes was established over a century ago, in part to protect the watersheds that provide water for drinking and agricultural activity further downstream.  Yes, it is a human-centric perspective, but one that seemed to work until recent years.  In the 21st century, gone is the true wilderness of Bighorn Country, marred by countless intrusions allowing human access for industry and recreation that have led to landscape degradation.   Among the casualties of this assault on the watersheds of the Bighorn is the bull trout. Lorne Fitch looks to native fish as sentinels calling out the impact of land use changes.  Lorne is a professional biologist and author with a lifelong connection to Bighorn Country.   He has experienced the decline of bull trout populations from the thousands to almost none in his own lifetime.  Is there any hope for recovery? Lorne believes that requires a societal shift towards a conservation ethic and an acceptance that landscapes have limits and constraints, that they cannot be all things to all people all the time.  Journalist and host of The Bull Trout Show Cheryl Croucher asked Lorne Fitch to pinpoint when things went wrong in the Bighorn and if it is too late for the bull trout. 

Would you know a bull trout if you saw one?  Most anglers fishing the streams of Alberta’s eastern slopes have never seen or caught a bull trout.  Yet this now rare and threatened species once populated the streams of Bighorn Country by the thousands.  The culprit behind this extirpation since the 1950’s is human interference, including overfishing, introduction of non-native species, draining of wetlands for agriculture, industrial development in the forest reserve, and recreational activity.  Just a bit of silt in a stream can smother eggs in a spawning bed or redd.  Hanging culverts where roads cross creeks can prevent fish from migrating up or down stream to feed or spawn.  One person with intimate knowledge of the life and trials of the native bull trout is biologist, author, and conservation advocate Lorne Fitch.   In speaking with The Bull Trout Show’s host Cheryl Croucher, Lorne describes the bull trout as looking like “a torpedo with fins”. 

Lorne Fitch is a keen observer of the natural world, a conservationist, and a man of many stories.  He is author of the new book “Streams of Consequence: Dispatches from the Conservation World”.  Indeed, the streams of Alberta’s eastern slopes were Lorne’s childhood playground.  That is where he learned to fish and first encountered the bull trout of Bighorn Country.  As a young man, he turned his passion for the outdoors into a lifelong career as a professional biologist and Fish and Wildlife Officer with the Province of Alberta.  Lorne’s career paralleled the decline of native bull trout as human access and industrial development encroached dramatically into the forests of the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains. Journalist Cheryl Croucher talked with Lorne Fitch about the changes he has observed over his lifetime. 

You’ll find Bighorn Country along the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains in Alberta.  Bull trout flourished in the rivers and streams of the Bighorn from the last ice age until the mid-twentieth century.  That’s when bull trout succumbed to the impact of increased human access to the forested wildlands and the industrial and tourist development that followed.  Recent mitigation and conservation efforts are focused on recovering bull trout and other native salmonid species.  But there’s more to this fish story than biology and habitat restoration. There are the links to indigenous culture, human storytelling, and our connection to the land.  These form the basis of a unique social science research project called “Plural perspectives on Bighorn Country: Restor(y)ing land use, governance, and bull trout population health in Alberta”.  The project is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada New Frontiers in Research Fund.  To learn more about Restor(y)ing Bull Trout, journalist Cheryl Croucher spoke with co-investigator Dr. Zoe Todd, a Metis scholar, fish philosopher, and Associate Professor of Indigenous Studies at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia.