One day this fall as Brad Hurkett was winding down a study of bull trout spawning on Hidden Creek, he spotted a logging company vehicle on the road beside the creek. The 300-metre stretch of the Upper Oldman River tributary contained 30 redds – spawning areas marked by clean gravel in the creek bed – susceptible to silting or mud that can wash into the creek from the road.

“The guy was setting up survey markers to begin logging the area next summer and even commented on how many bull trout were in the creek,” Hurkett recalls.

“We were really disheartened. Why would they have to log this area?”

For the past few summers, Hurkett and four other fisheries biologists with the Alberta Conservation Association, a not-for-profit charity funded mainly through fees attached to hunting and angling licences, have been assessing bull trout habits and habitat in the Upper Oldman River drainage.

The cliché tale fishers tell almost always involve size – the bigger the better. The fish that was landed or got away grows with each recitation. It’s probably a guy thing.

Bull trout get special attention because of their size. Biologists routinely find 78 cm (30-inch) fish that have been misunderstood, or assumed to be less desirable because of their predatory nature: they’re pretty much at the top of the piscatorial food chain. I’ve heard more than once from anglers who swear a 14-inch cutthroat at the end of their lines got swallowed by a humongous bull trout. At one time, it’s said, they were fished to eliminate them from streams so other, introduced species seen as more desirable could take over.

Over-fishing, poaching, habitat destruction through forestry, mining and other industrial practices and indiscriminate off-road vehicle use have reduced their range to 33 per cent of what it once was. In the south, bull trout used to be found well downstream into the Prairies.

So, Alberta’s official native fish – it’s been around the area for 13,000 years or so – has been protected since the mid-‘90s. It’s listed as “sensitive”, referring to any species particularly sensitive to human activities or natural events. Anglers can catch them, but can’t keep them. Regulations help in identifying them: they have no black spots.

The ACA study has looked at migration between streams and over long distances. This year included a closer look at spawning, which resulted in a focus on Hidden Creek above the Forestry Trunk Road.

“If we hadn’t been studying spawning, we wouldn’t have know about the logging plans,” Hurkett says.

Daryl Wig, Alberta Sustainable Resources Southern Rockies area fisheries biologist, says forestry officials have been receptive to concerns about the threat to the fishery, but no decision has been made to modify logging plans.

“Ideally, they would say, ‘you can have it.’”

Albertans worried about this latest threat to bull trout can write to their MLA.

Bull trout aren’t the only sport fish of concern. The federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans is considering adding native Alberta Westslope Cutthroat to the species at risk registry.

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