Biologists conduct first fish survey in Fish Creek since 1992

Biologists are using a technique called electrofishing to identify species that call the Fish Creek watershed home.

The last time anyone studied the fish species in Fish Creek was 1992, and a lot has changed since then, according to fisheries biologists.

A team made up of the Friends of Fish Creek Provincial Park Society, the Fish Creek Watershed Association, Tssut’ina Nation and Freshwater Conservation Canada have had to wait for the water to clear after a record July rainfall.

Now that they can see to the bottom of the creek, they’re using an electro fishing technique to stun the fish and capture them.

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They then identify the species and measure it before returning it back into the creek.

“We started out at the downstream end of the park,” said Elliot Lindsay, fisheries biologist with Freshwater Conservation Canada. “It was kind of like a training day for all the groups involved – just to get our feet wet – and we caught a lot of fish; I think we caught almost 600 fish in a 300-metre reach.”

“We documented Prussian carp there, so those fish were not here in the 90s at all, anywhere, so that’s like a new development.”

Lindsay says the sampling program has 30 sites along Fish Creek and its major tributaries, with a goal of taking a snapshot of the fish community in the watershed, which they can then compare with data gathered during the last survey in 1992.

“Some really clear things that should come out of the data are the presence or absence of certain fish species,” he said. “We’ll be able to look at the sampling done in the 90s and we’ll be able to know what species did they find, where did they find them and where didn’t they find them.”

Ross Anderson is a watershed field coordinator for the Fish Creek Provincial Park Society, and says he and the team have been spending long hours at multiple sites collecting data.

David Swann, vice chairman Fish Creek Watershed Association, has watched the creek evolve over the years and says he is concerned that water flow slows to a trickle at the end of every season.

“The flows can be almost nil,” he said. “Climate change seems to be a factor, clearcut logging up stream and a lot of withdrawals along Fish and Priddis Creek, so we’ve got to find out more about the quality and quantity of water here; we need to know how drastically (the fish population is) changing and how to restore them.”

Katrina Terrill, executive director of the Fish Creek Provincial Park Society,, says there may be some hybridization occurring between bull and brook trout, something that would be important to identify if there are any west slope cutthroat trout present.

“If there are indeed those west slope cutthroat trout, which are a species at risk here in Alberta, we need to know so we can actually do some more management of that species,” she said. “And to make sure we’re protecting habitat to an even greater extent than we’re already doing within the park and within the rest of the watershed.”

The team will wrap up its survey by the end of August, and then take all the data and compile it into a public report later in the fall or early 2026.