To save the Fraser River’s white sturgeon, B.C.’s angling guides go fishing for data

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In the murky waters of the Fraser River, the creature at the top of the food chain is a living dinosaur. Largely unchanged for millions of years, the massive white sturgeon has survived ice ages. A little more than a century of human activity, however, has pushed this fish to the edge of extinction in parts of the Fraser watershed.

On the lower stretch of the river, there appear to be sufficient numbers to sustain a catch-and-release recreational fishery that attracts thousands of anglers annually. The actual population is hard to know. The last estimate is from 2019, when there were an estimated 45,000 sturgeon in the lower Fraser – not counting fish less than 60 centimetres in length. Both the federal and the B.C. governments are working on their own conservation plans, processes that have been hampered by data gaps.

The governments’ work to update population assessments has been delegated to the Fraser Valley Angling Guides Association.

Lower Fraser white sturgeon have been assessed as threatened and are currently in the process of being listed in the federal Species at Risk Act (SARA). Kevin Estrada is a director with the angling guides association, and he believes the data are unreliable – people only want to catch the big trophy fish, so no one was really counting the small ones. That’s why his group is now researching the juvenile population.

“We’re doing the science that wasn’t being done,” he said.

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Mr. Estrada runs a guided fishing outfit on the Fraser. Although his clients don’t get to take home anything more than a photograph, the white sturgeon is a trophy catch – the biggest freshwater fish in North America, it can live more than 150 years and exceed six metres in length.

In early March, he was out on the river for research. He deliberately avoided the big adults that were visible on his state-of-the-art sonar system, looking instead for juveniles to tag and measure.

“That’s a beautiful sight,” Mr. Estrada said as he navigated down a quiet side channel of the Fraser, an intertidal zone that supports a rich array of wildlife. He was referring to what can be seen only on sonar: a dense cluster of sturgeon, suspended in an ebb tide. “In this spot, there are probably 1,000 fish within 100 feet. That’s abundance.”

Using a barbless hook baited with roe, he reeled in a juvenile. It’s remarkably well-armoured. Instead of scales, its body is covered with rows of sharp, bony plates on the back and sides, and tooth-like barbs.

With the fish sitting in a custom cradle attached to the side of his boat, Mr. Estrada scanned it for a tag. It had none, so he slipped a syringe under one plate to inject a tracking transponder. He released the fish back into the river, where it swam vigorously away, quickly disappearing from view.

Sturgeon were once plentiful throughout the Fraser watershed. The Tŝilhqot’in Nation in the interior called the river ʔElhdaqox, their word for sturgeon. But European settlers launched a commercial fishery in 1880, which peaked in 1897. The population never recovered. In 1994, the harvest was closed.

The white sturgeon is so long-lived, it’s not yet clear how the closing has helped. A female sturgeon might not reach sexual maturity until the age of 30, so there is a considerable lag between conservation measures, and results.

The lines of responsibility for this fish are complex.

The B.C. government manages freshwater fish, while Ottawa looks after sturgeon in tidal waters, which reach all the way up the river to Mission, B.C. Beyond that, the narrow passage known as Hell’s Gate – downstream of the community of Boston Bar, in the Fraser Canyon – creates an effective barrier for sturgeon populations. They rarely cross those turbulent waters. North of Hell’s Gate, the sturgeon numbers are so low, they are captured by federal SARA protections.

The provincial government has been working on various plans for managing sturgeon for about two decades. Currently it is developing a Fraser River White Sturgeon Plan.

After two years of work, the planners have not even started to look at the fish populations north of Hell’s Gate.

Fraser River

watershed

Fraser River

Boston Bar

Hell’s Gate

Fraser

River

5

Detail

Harrison

Lake

Vancouver

Mission

BRITISH COLUMBIA

Abbotsford

30 km

UNITED STATES

john sopinski/the globe and mail,

Source: openstreetmap

Fraser River

watershed

Fraser River

Boston Bar

Hell’s Gate

Fraser

River

5

Detail

Harrison

Lake

Vancouver

Mission

BRITISH COLUMBIA

Abbotsford

30 km

UNITED STATES

john sopinski/the globe and mail,

Source: openstreetmap

Fraser River

watershed

Fraser River

Boston Bar

Hell’s Gate

Fraser

River

5

Detail

Harrison

Lake

Vancouver

Mission

BRITISH COLUMBIA

Abbotsford

30 km

UNITED STATES

john sopinski/the globe and mail, Source: openstreetmap

Trevor Rhodes is a senior official with the province’s Fish and Wildlife Branch. He says the planning process is being co-developed with First Nations along the Fraser, but sturgeon are still being managed in the meantime. “We’re managing the recreational fishery, enforcement is happening. What was recognized is there was additional work to do to identify the information gaps, and future actions.”

Meanwhile, the federal government, under SARA, has tabled a draft action plan for the threatened populations of white sturgeon above Hell’s Gate. Part of the proposed plan is to “address basic biological data gaps.” It calls for work to be done to identify critical habitats and to clarify the risks.

This slow-moving progress makes sturgeon expert Marvin Rosenau livid. Dr. Rosenau is a fish biologist and instructor at the B.C. Institute of Technology, home of the provincial Rivers Institute. While the sturgeon populations north of Hell’s Gate are precarious, Dr. Rosenau sees the number of big fish on the lower Fraser increasing.

It’s the next generation that he is worried about. Farmers have cleared land that would previously act as a nursery for young sturgeon during high waters. He’s watched jetboats running through spawning grounds, and incidental catch from salmon gillnet fisheries. “I’ve seen the most vile destruction of fish habitat in my life out here,” he said.

The Rivers Institute has asked both levels of government to support an ecosystem-wide plan to keep what they call the Heart of the Fraser intact, but they have had not even a nibble in response.

“The heart of the Fraser is the cornerstone of whether these guys survive or not,” he said.

Video: Seeking out sturgeon on the Fraser