The numerical response of anglers to fishing quality in British Columbia’s lake trout fisheries

Overfishing has declined 75% of Canada’s recreational fisheries jeopardizing valuable fisheries and threatening wild-stock spcies. Considering that humans interact with nature at large scales, management must better identify large-scale processes affecting fish-human interactions to avoid overfishing. Confronting these challenges requires using spatial information on fish-human dynamics along with computer-modeling that can used to develop sustainable resource policies. Wild-stock lake trout Salvelinus namaycush are one of the most important fishes to the Freshwater Fisheries Society of British Columbia because they are one of the only game-fish to persist in the northern regions of British Columbia. They are easily overfished due to their slow growth and low reproductive rates creating concerns for both fishery-related utilization and conservation of BC’s native fishes. Fish populations are sensitive to environmental changes, thus it is inappropriate to make critical management decisions without understanding expected ecosystem outcomes, accomplished via socio-ecological modeling. The approach of this project will develop a mechanistic computer model that links human dynamics with spatial-information to evaluate fish-human interactions in lake trout fisheries to support the conservation of lake trout. TOBECONT’D

Faculty Supervisor:

John Post

Student:

Partner:

Freshwater Fisheries Society of BC;InStream Fisheries Research Inc

Discipline:

Life Sciences

Sector:

Sustainability & the Environment; Natural Resources; Environmental Science and Technology

University:

University of Calgary

Program: