Ottawa announces $50 million for research into fisheries ecosystem

The federal government has committed more than $50 million to research into marine and freshwater ecosystems across Canada.

The projects range from improving habitat for Atlantic salmon to measuring the effects of shipping on whales off the British Columbia coast to studying trout-bearing waters in Alberta's Rocky Mountains where coal mines are being considered.

“We're targeting entire ecosystems and not just specific species,” said Fisheries and Oceans Minister Bernadette Jordan. “Working on ecosystems is what's going to protect species at risk.”

The money, from the previously announced $1.3-billion Nature Legacy fund, will pay for 50 studies run by governments, non-governmental organizations and First Nations across Canada. Some have already begun. The largest chunk of money, nearly $11 million, will be spent on 13 projects in B.C.

About two-thirds will go to research and improving fish habitat in rivers such as the Fraser.

The rest will be spent studying the effects of shipping noise on whales.

The biggest single grant — $5.6 million — goes to Alberta's Environment Department, where the province is to conduct research with other partners to support the protection and recovery of native trout species in the Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains.

Biologists are concerned the rivers that originate there — the source of drinking water for most of southern Alberta — are coming under increasing pressure from development.

West slope cutthroat trout are considered a threatened species. Fisheries scientists are also concerned about Alberta's bull trout.

Alberta recently rescinded a decades-old policy that prohibited development in large areas of the Eastern Slopes, the headwaters of those trout habitats.

The province, together with the federal government, is currently conducting an environmental review of a proposed coal mine that would remove a mountaintop adjacent to those headwaters.

More mining companies are expected to apply to the province's regulator for similar projects.

“We know that the cutthroat trout are a species at risk and there's a lot of work that needs to be done there,” said Jordan.

Most of the projects are expected to take several years to complete.