One of NLFF’s projects this year is to gather information about the population of goldeye and mooneye in the North Saskatchewan River near Edmonton. Information collected will help quantify
abundance modelling
size and age of fish
growth characteristics
movement patterns / when they arrive/leave
To date, over 150 goldeye and mooneye have been tagged as part of the project. The tags are readable by portable scanners and are used to identify individual fish.
Interestingly, none of these fish have been recaptured. In previous years we studied walleye in the river and it was quite common to recapture fish multiple times, quite often from the same location.
Although we are targeting mooneye and goldeye, we often catch other species in the river. One example is the Shorthead Redhorse, shown below.
This project is supported financially by the Alberta Conservation Association.