UNBC Freshwater Fish Ecology Lab

Youth outreach day! FFEL members Allie, Erica, Jonny and Melody presented at the Exploration Place’s Summer Camp. Campers learned about fish adaptations (physical or behavioral traits that make fish more suited to their environment) – like color🌈, shape🔸, mouth position👄 and senses👁️.

After the presentation, campers created their own unique fish, applying their new knowledge of fish adaptations🎨🖼️. A crowd favorite was a fish name “Toe”, a fish that uses its foot-shaped, toe-forward body to sense its surroundings in Bear Lake 🦶🐟. Between creating “Toe”, “Sunny fish”, “King”, “Lala”, “Rainbow” and many others, campers interacted with FFEL’s scientific equipment, learning hands-on how to identify, measure, tag, and track fish. The thermal drone took the show, feeding an interactive backdrop display for a thermal imagery dance party🕺🏻💃🏻.
 
The Exploration Place NSERC | CRSNG Rio Tinto 

The Nechako Research Newsletter – June 2026 issue is live! FFEL collaborates with Dr. Stephen Dery’s Northern Hydrometeorology Group (NHG) to publish a quarterly newsletter, sharing the two groups’ research, fieldwork, and outreach activities. Swipe to see FFEL’s updates from the spring! ➡️✨➡️

If you’d like to be added to the mailing list, send us a message or comment below and we’ll reach out to you for your email! 📠📨

Click the link in our bio to read the full newsletter.

At the beginning of June, FFEL members Melody and Erica led an interactive outreach booth at the Juvenile Sturgeon Release Day in Vanderhoof, BC. Hosted by the Nechako White Sturgeon Recovery Initiative, this annual event brings nearly 1,000 students to engage with fish conservation. Students learned hands-on how to study fish, including identification, measurement, tagging, and tracking. Exercising their new skills, youth turned from elementary school students to junior fish biologists in minutes. FFEL looks forward to the next outreach event and can’t wait to return to next year’s Sturgeon Release Day! 🐟🎉🥳

RioTinto

What do hot tub safety rules have to do with rainbow trout survival?

For Natural Resources and Environmental Studies graduate student Kirsten Mathison, that unexpected connection led to a winning presentation at UNBC's Three Minute Thesis competition earlier this month.

Her research explores how rising water temperatures and heat exposure impact rainbow trout as well as the fish’s capacity to recover from thermal stress caused by heat waves.

Kirsten will represent UNBC at the western regional competition in Regina on May 4!

Read the full story: https://www.unbc.ca/our-stories/story/three-minute-thesis-winner-studies-heat-stress-rainbow-trout

Advancing understanding of trout population change.

As climate change reshapes rivers and ecosystems across northern British Columbia, new research led by Master of Science student Carly Walters reveals how stream-dwelling trout populations are responding, offering critical insight to guide targeted conservation and management efforts in B.C. and beyond.

In her first co-authored paper published in the journal Ecological Applications. Walters examined long-term changes in rainbow trout population dynamics in the Stellako River.

Supported by funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the NEEF - Nechako Environmental Enhancement Fund, Walters drew from a rare and extensive dataset — 35 years of snorkel counts collected annually on the river by the B.C. government between 1988 and 2022.

The long-term dataset allowed Walters to pinpoint periods of growth and decline and connect those shifts to specific environmental conditions and life stages.

“The findings point to the importance of focusing management efforts on smaller fish and underscores the impact that climate-driven warming is having on stream-dwelling trout populations” Walters notes. “It also highlights the importance of abundant sockeye salmon returns to support the recreational fishery of larger rainbow trout.”

The study also sparked the next phase in the MSc student’s ongoing research in UNBC Freshwater Fish Ecology Lab, under the supervision of Rio Tinto Chair in Climate Change and Freshwater Fish Ecology Dr. Eduardo Martins.

Learn more: https://www.unbc.ca/our-stories/story/advancing-understanding-trout-population-change-guide-conservation-and-management-efforts