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If you have any questions on the information presented, or require additional report data or attachments, please contact the Report Contact
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The Williston Reservoir was created in 1968 following the construction of the WAC Bennett Dam and impounding the Peace River in the canyon near Hudsons Hope, BC, for hydroelectric generation. With a surface area of 1,779 km2, the Williston Reservoir is the largest lentic freshwater system in British Columbia.
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Author: Paige N. Wilson & J. Mark Shrimpton
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Old Reference Number: PEA-F20-F-3143-DCA
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Old Reference System: FWCP - Fish Wildlife Compensation Program Peace
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Date Published: Jun 2021
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Report ID: 59358
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Audience: Government and Public
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A native population of Kokanee (Oncorhynchus nerka) was
established in the Williston Reservoir when it formed after the completion of the WAC Bennett Dam (Blackman et al. 1990). Changes in relative abundance of Kokanee in Williston Reservoir increased from 0.1% of fish gill netted in 1974 to 2.3% of captures based on data from the same
locations sampled in 1988. The origin of the native Kokanee in the reservoir may have been from two sources as populations of Kokanee exist at the southern and northern regions of the watershed. In the south, Arctic and Tacheeda Lakes in the headwaters of the Parsnip River have shore spawning Kokanee. In the north, Thutade Lake in the headwaters of the Finlay River also has Kokanee that appear to be shore spawners.
To facilitate the expansion of Kokanee into tributaries of the Williston Reservoir that were more accessible to anglers and also provide a prey source for large piscivorous fish species, a stocking program was initiated using fish from the Columbia River (Blackman et al. 1990; Langston 2012).
Stream-spawning Kokanee from Arrow Reservoir (Hill Creek) and Kootenay Lake (Meadow Creek) were stocked extensively in tributaries of Williston Reservoir from 1990 to 1998. During this time, over 3 million juvenile Kokanee were stocked into five rivers that flow into the Williston Reservoir (Langston and Murphy 2008). The five systems were: Carbon Creek, Davis River, Dunlevy Creek,
Manson River, and Nation River; three systems on the east side of the reservoir and two rivers that flow into the southwest portion of the reservoir. An aerial enumeration study conducted from 2002 to 2006 found that the distribution and abundance of Kokanee in tributaries to the Williston Reservoir poorly reflected the stocking patterns from the 1990s. By 2006, Kokanee were reported to spawn in at least 68 rivers and streams from the Parsnip River watershed to the Finlay River watershed (Langston 2012). Systems with the greatest abundance of Kokanee were found to be Russell Creek (Finlay River tributary), Ingenika River, Omineca River, Osilinka River, and Germansen River - some years with up to 250 000 spawners within a single river. Spawning Kokanee, therefore, appear to have selected tributaries in the Williston watershed that flow into
the northwestern portion of the reservoir - not the regions originally stocked. These patterns, however, may have changed even further in the past decade -in response to a survey conducted in 2016 of individuals living in communities in the northern portion of the watershed and anglers fishing in the region, Kokanee were described as everywhere (Coxson et al. 2017).
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Report Type
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Fish and Aquatic Habitat Information |
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Subject
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Fish Species - Kokanee - Oncorhynchus nerka |
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Region - Kootenay |
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Fish and Fish Habitat - Conservation Biology |
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Fish and Fish Habitat - Fish Genetics |
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Fish and Fish Habitat - Research |
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Water Information - Diversions - Preliminary and As Constructed |
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Water Information - Hydrometric / Hydrology |
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