The Bull Trout Show
The bull trout, Salvelinus confluentus, is Alberta’s official fish. This native trout species, believed to have inhabited the waterways of present-day Alberta since the last Ice Age, once populated streams and rivers from the Rocky Mountain headwaters well onto the prairies. European settlement starting in the 1800’s changed that, with settlers deeming the bull trout a ‘garbage fish’ that ought to be extirpated in favour of other trout. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, naturalists and fishers in Alberta documented the decline of the species, and in the early 1980’s, they initiated the first efforts to urge the provincial government to protect the species in Alberta. Despite nearly 40 years of local and national scientific advocacy to protect the species, where there were once thriving populations of bull trout, today there may be only a handful or even none in the waterways where they once thrived. In 2019, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (now Fisheries and Oceans Canada) declared the bull trout a threatened species under the Species At Risk Act, acting on a recommendation from the Committee on the Status ofEndangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) issued in 2012. The Government of Canada subsequently issued a species recovery strategy for the Saskatchewan-Nelson River bull trout population in 2020, and in 2021 a species critical habitat order was issued.
The Bull Trout Show
04 - Death By A Thousand Cuts with Lorne Fitch
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.