Fish are swimming a bit easier in this P.E.I. creek thanks to bridge structure removal

The water is now flowing more freely in a section of the Mill Creek, a tributary of North Lake Creek,near Souris, P.E.I.

A project is underway to createan easier passage for fish in the river, including Atlantic salmon.

The Souris and Area Branch of the P.E.I. Wildlife Federation is spearheading the work, with support from the Canadian Wildlife Federation, the Atlantic Salmon Federation and the provincial government.

Part of the work involved removing an old concrete bridge structurefrom the area, saidKeila Miller, co-watershed co-ordinator with the group.

"It's impeding fish connectivity at this point," Miller said."It's kind of backing up water by times, and if there's any kind of a flush fromrainfall or any heavy rain events, it is pushing water upstream where it is making bad habitat, basically, for fish."

Miller said removing the structure was a high priority because there is important habitat just upstream for Atlantic salmon, which is listed as a species of concern in Atlantic Canada.

"It'll do a lot because it'll create the connectivity that should have been there," Miller said.

"It'll be natural because there will be no structure impeding the connectivity, and it will restore the river meander back to where it should have been."

High-value salmon habitat

Miller said the Sourisgroup does a lot of work tomonitorsalmon populations in the area, including electrofishingand tagging.

She said this project should help build the population.

"It'll help with the high-value habitat spots for salmon for producing redds, which are their eggs that they produce every fall," Miller said.

"If you are able to provide more salmon habitat that's valuable and they can produce their eggsand they can sustain their population numbers, that is a good news story at the end of the day."

Miller said there are lots of other structures similar to the bridgethat need to be removedor replaced, including aging culverts.

Kris Hunter of the Atlantic Salmon Federationsaid studies have found anywhere from one-third to two-thirds of all structures cause some sort of obstacle for fish passage.

"They're not all complete obstacles, but they cause some sort of obstacle that just prevents fish from going where they want to go and that prevents them from accessing the cold, clean habitat that they need," said Hunter, who is the federation's program director in P.E.I.

"Especially in the light of climate change, that's a real concern that they might be not as resilient. So by doing work like this, we hope to actually increase that resiliency to climate change."

Hunter said this project is the first in P.E.I. under a new program from the federationcalledHeadwaters Canada.

"We actually have seen some positive signs in the salmon population as of late, whichtells us that what we're doing is starting to work," Hunter said.

"It's really timely that we're doing this sort of work now, and being proactive and actually helping these fish when they need it before it gets to be too desperate."

When fish thrive, so do humans

The Canadian Wildlife Federation is part of similar projects across Canadathrough its national freshwater connectivity program.

That work started in in B.C., and has now spread to Alberta, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.

"We've identified about 10 priority barriers and we've given some of them to the province that we've identified as key barriers," said Fielding Montgomery, a fish passage biologist with the federation.

"They're going to be hopefully dealing with them in the next five years or so. But as a core group here, we're working on about three or four of them on our own."

Montgomery said the projects may seem expensive, but they have value for bothfish and humans.

"When the fish are thriving, so are all the other animals in the ecosystem," Montgomery said.

"Also, there's a lot of floods and things happening with environmental catastrophes, and so we're not only just clearing the way for fish, but we're making it safer for [the public] by ensuring that water can flow freely as well."

He said removing barriers is also important because of climate change.

"Fish need habitat more than ever because there's very little left as water gets warmer," Montgomery said. "So we need to make sure that they can access all the habitat that's up there for them."

The North Lake Creekproject received funding from the Wildlife Conservation Fund.