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2020 Fish wheel operations at the Big Bar landslide response in British Columbia

Emulating the traditional First Nations fishing method of dip-netting, fish wheels are effective in various water levels and conditions due to their mobility and flexibility. While the “nature-like” fishway remains the primary method to move salmon over the Big Bar landslide, this supplementary technology supports radio tagging and emergency enhancement efforts and, if required, the collection of fish for “trap and transport” activities. In partnership with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, this work is being led by Gitksan Watershed Authorities, St’at’imc Eco Resources and Splitrock Environmental.

For more information, please visit: Big Bar landslide response

Transcript

The Big Bar landslide to First Nations is a huge concern.

First Nations role in the Big Bar landslide brings a cultural perspective.

Also brings practical perspective. I mean a lot of people live and visit the river all the time, grown up on the river, know it intimately.

Those kinds of factors complemented the science and administrative properties that the Province and DFO brought.

When you fish, you fish for with grandkids, you fish with your dad; they learn how to fish through that, and it's more of a community thing.

You can pass your customs down to future generations.

The fish wheel was called to Big Bar this year, strictly for tagging.

It was only supposed to be like, run a couple days a week, and few taggers just to make sure they're making it through.

Well, even during the high water, the water was still too high in the fishway, it was still too dangerous for people, but the fish wheel could keep going, and it was catching fish.

We started taking broodstock from the fish wheel, and bringing them to French Bar.

Last year at this time of year we were doing all the tagging right on site.

It seemed as though they'd get a little stressed out and just hang around and wouldn't even try to go through the slide for a little while.

So, we decided to bring the wheel here to Lillooet and tag down here so that they'd have about a week or so to get up there, they could shake off the stress a little bit or relax a bit before they swam up there.

The fish wheel, it's a passive harvester capture method.

It operates in a current, and it just sort of under its own power and water power, it turns and picks up the fish in baskets, delivers them to the live bins.

From there we can either harvest the fish or we can sample fish.

Fish wheels have been around for probably over a hundred years, they were used in the Columbia, they were used up in Alaska and the Yukon rivers, I believe it emulates the fish traps that were used in the past.

A lot of fishing methods are still stressful on the fish.

And I think the fish wheel proved to be a passive fishing method, it delivers fish into the live bins they're allowed to swim with the current, and continue to recover and be relaxed, and when they're released they're in better shape.

For over 10,000 years, First Nations along the Fraser selectively harvested fish through dip-netting and dried their fish along the river.

Today, the drying racks stand empty.

Our hope is that through the work to restore natural fish passage at Big Bar, that our grandchildren can one day fish and fill the drying racks once again.

The fish wheel has caught and fed thousands of people. It has proved itself over hundreds of years, it still can be used in modern day until the tagging is needed to be done.

I believe the fish wheel has been successful the last two years helping Big Bar landslide.

This year was pretty incredible that we got broodstock from the fish wheel, and now it's still working and we're tagging fish right off the wheel.

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