Atlantic Sturgeon is long living and has been found to live up to 60 years! Overall, Females tend to be larger and live longer than males. They only start to produce eggs and spawn when they reach 12 to 18 years of age, which is quite old compared to other fish species.

A critical spawning area is the Saint John River, which flows through New Brunswick, Quebec, and Maine in the United States. However, they also live in the Cumberland and Minas basins in the Inner Bay of Fundy. Like many species in the Maritimes, they are anadromous, meaning they spend time in both fresh and salt water throughout their life.

Depending on how big a female sturgeon is, she can lay anywhere from 400,000 to 8 million eggs! They spawn over boulders, bedrock, and gravel bottoms because their eggs stick to stones on the river bed. Within a week, the little Atlantic Sturgeon hatch and they stay in the estuary for about 2-5 years before following the adults out to sea.

As of May 2011, it is listed by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) as being threatened. However, it has not yet been listed as a Species at Risk. They have already been extirpated throughout European estuaries. The major threats to the Atlantic Sturgeon are the Commercial Fisheries as by-catch, over-fishing and river degradation.

Help protect these gentle giants in our rivers and oceans!

*Photo courtesy of: Fort Folly Habitat Recovery Program

What does Atlantic salmon – Plamu – mean to you? Some of us enjoy fishing salmon and eating the nutritious traditional food. Others buy the tasty bright pink salmon fillets at the grocery store or at restaurants. Salmon is popular, healthy and easy to find. Because salmon seems to be everywhere, many people don’t known that Atlantic salmon is a Species at Risk. The wild salmon has been having trouble for a long time due to many changes to its habitat and overfishing.

In every region, salmon are unique and the proof is in their genes. They are specially adapted to live and thrive in the streams where they are born and where they return to spawn, after feeding in the ocean. They like cool deep pools to feed and rest and smooth cobble to lay their eggs. When they travel upstream to reproduce, anything that makes their journey harder can affect whether they succeed in the journey and make more salmon for the future.

So what happened to the Atlantic salmon? Dams, culverts and other barriers sometimes prevent salmon from moving upriver, cutting them off from valuable habitat. Forestry and farming have both contributed to erosion, and when too much soil rushes into rivers if can suffocate eggs and make the rivers too warm for adult salmon. Many of us think of acid rain as a problem of the past. But acid rain has hurt salmon in Nova Scotia, reducing the population by 90% in ten streams. And salmon aquaculture can also hurt wild salmon, by introducing diseases and parasites to the wild salmon.

Can we help the Atlantic salmon? The Petitcodiac River is a river that was once completely cut off from the Bay of Fundy by a causeway. Just two years ago, the causeway gates were lifted to allow that natural connection between the Bay and the river. Fort Foley FN has been keeping an eye on the river to learn whether salmon are able to recover. They were excited to find healthy young salmon in their smolt wheel, which allows them to observe the fish in the river. Only time will tell them whether the population recovers, but they do know they have made the salmon’s journey a little bit easier.

What do you think we could do for the Atlantic salmon in Nova Scotia to ensure it is here for future generations?

Speckled trout prefer cool clear waters with a lot of cover. Usually they live in spring-fed streams with many pools and riffles. There they use undercut banks, submerged objects such as large rocks, tree trunks and stumps, deep pools, and shelter from overhanging vegetation as hiding places. Speckled trout are mostly meat-eaters (carnivorous). They eat many water and land insects such as mayflies, caddis flies, midges and beetles. Larger trout eat leeches, small fish, mollusks, frogs, and salamanders.

Speckled trout in Nova Scotia spawn during October and November in shallow, gravelly areas of streams with clean bottoms and good water flows. Spring-fed headwaters are ideal, but they will also spawn in the gravel-bottomed areas of lakes where spring waters occur. The female digs a nest (redd) deep in the gravel with her body.  After the eggs have been laid and fertilized, they are covered and left to develop slowly over the winter. A 25 cm (10 in) female trout can produce about 500 3 – 5 mm eggs. Water flowing through the redds keeps the eggs clean and oxygenated. Hatching occurs in the spring and the larvae (alevins) remain still and undisturbed in the gravel while they absorb the large yolk-sac.

Young trout (fry) emerging from the gravel have lengths of 2.5 – 3.5 cm (1 in +) and begin feeding on aquatic insects. They prefer shallow areas where temperatures are 11 – 15 C and where rubble (rocks of 10 – 40 cm or 4 – 16 in) on the stream bottom provides cover. At the end of their first year, speckled trout in Nova Scotia are 5 – 10 cm (2 – 4 in) long. They overwinter on the stream bottom in spaces between rocks. Their growth depends very much on local conditions. Speckled trout living in large rivers and lakes would probably be 25 or 30 cm (10 – 12 in) at age 3, but those in small streams might only reach a length of 15 cm (6 in).  Trout usually mature at three years old and rarely live past age 5.

Some populations of speckled trout migrate to sea for short periods. They move downstream and upstream in the spring or early summer and remain in estuaries and ocean areas where food is plentiful. After about 2 months they return to freshwater.

Speckled trout probably migrate to sea in response to crowded conditions, low food supplies, or unfavourable temperatures in their home waters. Some over-winter in estuaries, and there are shore movements along our coast. Not all fish in a population migrate, nor do they necessarily go every year. Sea-run speckled trout live longer and grow larger than strictly freshwater speckled trout. A 61 cm (24 in) sea-run speckled trout that weighed 3.4 kg (7.5 lb) was caught in Halifax County, Nova Scotia, in 1871. It can be seen today in the Nova Scotia Museum of Natural History.

Predators include mergansers, herons, kingfishers, mink, owls, osprey, otter, perch, eels, other trout, and man.

The Mi’kmaw Conservation Group has been working with Millbrook First Nation to discover a solution to an observed decline in trout population in Lepper Brook. Stay tuned for a final report and recommendations on how to protect and restore habitat to ensure the traditional practice of fishing for trout continues for future generations.

Eel populations have declined in many areas due to hydroelectric developments, habitat fragmentation, pollution, introduced species and overfishing. They may also be affected by climate change or unknown factors. The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada has indicated eels are a species of “Special Concern”. In the future, eels may also be listed in the Species At Risk Act.

The Mi’kmaw Conservation Group in partnership with St. Francis Xavier University and Ni’newey Video Productions are working on a traditional eel fishing video that will highlight the important issues around the American Eel and what the impact will be on Communities if it is listed under the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Species at Risk Act. Once a species is listed under the Species at Risk Act, access to this food and medical source could be limited.

Eels are famous for the outrageous journey they undertake to breed. As far as anyone knows, they leave freshwater and coastal areas and travel to the Sargasso Sea. There, they are believed to reproduce and then die. But nobody knows for sure. Scientists are starting to track eels on their oceanic journey. They are assisted by advancements in satellite tracking tags, which are now much smaller. Once they breed eggs and then small leaf-shaped larvae drift and swim back to land. These start to develop a familiar eel shape as they approach the coast.

When eels are here in Atlantic Canada, they are known for making burrows. They often spend their days in burrows, and they overwinter in the mud. They are nocturnal animals, so they are more active at night. This traditional food is captured by spear in winter and summer. The winter spear has many prongs that help the fisher find the eel in the mud. The summer spear has curved guides that help with aim during the nighttime spear fishery.