Prince George, B.C., conservation group fixes deadly problem for Nechako River fish

Fish will no longer be trapped and left to die in disconnected pools during periods of low water at Cottonwood Island Park in Prince George, B.C.

It comes after a local conservation group successfully reconnected a small side channel of the Nechako River that would regularly dry up. 

The park is surrounded by the river, and the 1.4-km-long side channel, that is used by many fish species as a place of refuge and a spawning habitat.

However, when the water receded, the side channel drained — leaving fish stranded in the sediments or vulnerable to be picked off by predators.

“The fish were being stranded there, and the water was running out of oxygen and drying up completely,” said Jesi Lauzon, the operations co-ordinator for Spruce City Wildlife Association. 

“It could be freezing solid over winter.”

At the beginning of December, the group used an excavator to move a final bit of dirt and permanently reconnect the channel to the Nechako River. 

“During the past, it flipped pretty fast to become an area of mortality and destruction,” said Lauzon, who has been working on the restoration project for over five years.

Lauzon says she was first inspired to take on the project after her basset hound Daisy squirmed out of her leash and ran down into the drained channel while they were walking at Cottonwood Island Park. 

“She came out black and super smelling because she got into this really gross muck.” 

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

“We had to create a habitat proposal, and kind of break down what it would take to do a restoration project,” she said.

The local non-profit Spruce City Wildlife Association, where she volunteered, was eager to help make her academic project a reality. 

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

Volunteers then spent time each fall setting traps, and removing all the salmon caught within the channel to a better area, as Lauzon and her team worked on the restoration project.

Lauzon says now that the channel has been reconnected to the Nechako River, she’s eager to see the differences 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 from school and have so many people help me make it actually happen,” Lauzon said.

The co-ordinator said the project saw many community organizations help, including the Lheidli T’enneh First Nation’s fisheries team, who planted willow trees along the channel to strengthen the banks and create more wildlife habitat. 

“People put in their time, and businesses brought their entire offices down to volunteer for a day to help. It was a huge, just, collaborative effort from so many people,” she said.

“I can’t be thankful enough because I couldn’t have done it by myself.”