Minas Basin Salmon Kelt

Tracking the migration and dispersal of ocean migrating fishes is difficult. There is a lot of variability in the movement patterns of fish, as their behaviour changes with interannual variability in the biological and physical conditions in the marine environment. Ongoing animal tracking programs demonstrate that through multiple years of tracking the movements of highly migratory marine fishes we gain a much more precise understanding of both the movement patterns and their ecological drivers.

This project will expand on existing smolt, post-smolt and kelt acoustic tagging projects aimed at determining near shore and coastal migration distribution and survival of Gaspereau River Atlantic Salmon, by double-tagging kelts with pressure measuring coded and HR acoustic tagging technology. This will give us more complete information of the movement and dispersal of these fish integrating across several life stages.

This project has three objectives: 1) to build on the work of Lacroix (2013) by using electronic tag technology to determine the migration and dispersal of inner Bay of Fundy kelts released in the Gaspereau River, Nova Scotia. Kelt migration and dispersal will be examined both for coastal areas and ocean shelf environments. 2) to determine predation/mortality rates in freshwater and marine environments. 3) to use pressure data transmitted by the tags to determine how the tagged kelts use the water column.