Prince George, BC, conservation group addresses deadly problem for Nechako River fish

Fish will no longer be left to get stuck or die in isolated pools during low water periods at Cottonwood Island Park in Prince George, BC.

This happened when a local conservation group successfully reconnected a small side channel of the Nechako River that regularly dried up.

The park is surrounded by a river and a 1.4 km long side channel, which is used as shelter and spawning habitat by many fish species.

However, when the water receded, the side channel dried up – leaving the fish trapped in the sediment or vulnerable to being taken by predators.

“The fish were stranded in there, and the water was losing oxygen and completely drying up,” said Jesse Lauzon, operations coordinator for the Spruce City Wildlife Association.

“In the winter it can be freezing solid.”

In early December, the group used an excavator to remove the last of the soil and permanently connect the channel to the Nechako River.

“During the past, it changed very rapidly and became an area of ​​death and destruction,” said Lauzon, who has been working on the restoration project for more than five years.

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Lauzon says she was first inspired to take on this project when her basset hound Daisy got out of her leash and ran into a dry channel while they were walking in Cottonwood Island Park.

“She turned out to be black and highly smelly because she was really stuck in this dirty mud.”

Lauzon was also a fisheries biology student at the University of Northern BC at the time, and was looking to do a project on the conservation of aquatic ecosystems.

“We had to create a habitat proposal, and detail what it would take to do a restoration project,” he said.

The local nonprofit Spruce City Wildlife Association, where she volunteered, was eager to help make her educational project a reality.

After two years of monitoring the channel to obtain a baseline of data, Lauzon was able to prove that the channel was not a safe winter refuge for salmon.

Volunteers then spent time each fall setting nets and removing all the salmon caught within the channel to an improved area as Lauzon and his team worked on the restoration project.

Lauzon says now that the channel has been reconnected to the Nechako River, he is eager to see the difference in the species and quantity of fish and wildlife that use the channel.

“It’s been a very long process, but it’s been amazing to take something away from the school and have so many people help me really make it happen,” Lauzon said.

The coordinator said several community organizations helped with the project, including the fisheries team from Lehidli Teneh First Nation, who planted willow trees along the channel to strengthen the banks and create more wildlife habitat.

He said, “People volunteered their time, and businesses volunteered their entire office for a day to help. It was a big, fair, collaborative effort by so many people.”

“I can’t be grateful enough because I couldn’t do it myself.”