Conservation effort
Wildlife association takes part in brook trout incubation project
LOUISBOURG — Carter Stevens wades through the brook in knee-high rubber boots toward the two large rectangular incubation boxes. The plastic boxes are each a few feet high and several feet long.
He lifts a lid on one of the boxes, showing the murky water within. Together, they could contain anywhere from 60,000 to 100,000 brook trout eggs.
He and Brent Baker work with the Cape Breton Island Wildlife Association, a group of 35 to 40 anglers, hunters,
fishers and trappers that are concerned for our environment. Baker is the association’s president.
This project, funded through the Nova Scotia Department of Fisheries, is an important contributor to local fish populations, which help to keep streams healthy. Brook trout, Baker says, are a species native to the province that are in just about every small stream and lake in the area.
The incubator boxes that they’re setting up could collectively hold roughly 100,000 eggs. Depending on the temperatures this winter, they could hatch anywhere between a few weeks from now to nearly two months.
“The lower the temperature, the longer it takes for them to hatch,” Baker says.
When they hatch, these trout will be distributed through the municipality and will serve to populate streams and lakes, as well as be used for fishing.
“The province does a certain amount of stocking every year, and this sort of supplements it, what we do here,” says Baker.
The island’s wildlife association has been established since 1985. The group is focused, not just on hunting, fishing and trapping, but also on conservation education. They do a lot of work with local public, private and native schools.
“The group was much larger originally, but it’s been dwindling in the last number of years on an account of lack of interest in hunting, fishing and outdoor activities,” says Baker.
He’s concerned about what will become of the conservation work they do when members like he and Stevens are too old to carry on. Parts of the island’s wetlands are being lost to construction work.
“In Cape Breton in the last number of years, we've come to find out that there's been a lot of wetlands destroyed. The compensation money that has been spent in replacing [them] hasn't been spent in Cape Breton, it's been spent in areas off the island.”
For groups like theirs, that's a major concern. The island is losing wetlands; some wetlands aren't getting replaced, and what's left after construction isn't being restored properly.
“If the money is not being spent in Cape Breton, then the wetland is lost for the area, forever. It never comes back.”
This is a concern for climate change because wetlands are carbon sinks: ecosystems that can store carbon from the atmosphere.
They're also considered filters, taking a lot of sedimentation and things that would be destructive if they ran into streams or rivers. Lastly, they provide an important breeding ground for a number of species, including brook trout.
Brook trout are anadromous, says Baker, which means they come to freshwater to spawn. Streams and brooks that are connected to saltwater, like this one, are essential to their lifecycle.
Looking to the future, Baker and Stevens want the focus to be on keeping up interest for groups like the wildlife association.
Baker wants people to recognize that conservation work like theirs doesn't get done on its own.
“It's hard, with an aging demographic, to get younger people involved … It takes a group, and you need volunteers and people who have the interest.”