Alberta’s Native Trout Country

Alberta’s Native Trout Country By Lesley Peterson, TUC Provincial Biologist

The Eastern Slopes of Alberta encompasses the eastern slopes and foothills of the Rocky Mountains and includes some of the most beautiful country in the province. This region is important for tourism, recreation, agriculture, and industry, and provides critical water resources, cultural value, and wildlife habitat. But did you know the Eastern Slopes is also native trout country?

Westslope Cutthroat Trout

Alberta’s native trout, and their Eastern Slopes habitats, are a huge part of what makes Alberta’s backcountry so incredible. The “big three” as we like to call them —  Bull Trout, Westslope Cutthroat Trout, and Athabasca Rainbow Trout — live in the cold, clean, clear, and connected waterways that Alberta is famous for. When these native trout are thriving, it shows that we’re taking good care of our lands and waters.

Bull Trout

But Alberta’s native trout aren’t thriving. In fact, they’re some of the most threatened species in the province. This is not a good indicator for the health of our streams in the Eastern Slopes.

We all have a role to play in protecting Alberta’s native trout and their habitats. No matter how we use the land in the Eastern Slopes — camping, hiking, fishing, off-roading, farming, ranching — we have a responsibility to pursue our activities in ways that keep our waters cold, clean, clear, and connected. To find out how you can help protect Alberta native trout, visit albertanativetrout.com.

Learn More About Alberta’s Native Trout

Trout Unlimited Canada is a member of The Alberta Native Trout Collaborative — a group of partner organizations working to advance native trout recovery in Alberta via habitat restoration, restoration stocking, land use planning, watershed and fish population assessments, and public education. Collaborating members include Alberta Environment and Parks, Alberta Conservation Association, Alberta Riparian Habitat Management Society (Cows and Fish), Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society Southern Alberta Chapter, Trout Unlimited Canada, and Foothills Research Institute.

Athabasca Rainbow Trout

Our Work Many of our recent projects are aimed at native trout recovery, and most often this involves habitat rehabilitation. In the upper Clearwater River watershed southwest of Rocky Mountain House, TUC has been working along Radiant Creek and Rocky Creek to improve habitat for Bull Trout. We’ve also been working for a few years in the Tay River watershed to identify the reasons Bull Trout numbers are low and to address those impacts. We’ve done similar work just a stone’s throw away along Fall Creek, to improve the health of this critical Bull Trout spawning tributary of the Ram River.

In the upper Macleod River watershed south of Hinton, TUC is working with partners to protect and restore MacKenzie Creek, a crucial Bull Trout spawning system that is also habitat for Athabasca Rainbow Trout. This multi-year project involves re-routing a motorized recreation trail to get it out of the creek and floodplain, installing bridges at crossings, and re-building the banks at dozens of stream crossings where the trail is being closed and re-routed.

Northwest of Calgary, the Waiparous Creek watershed is home to both Bull Trout and Westslope Cutthroat Trout. To improve connectivity and reduce sediment runoff from trails, we have reclaimed several stream crossings along “undesignated” trails, and installed bridges at others along with the designated trail system. This gets “wheels out of water” and prevents mud from running off trails into creeks, which damages fish habitat.

All of this work involves partnering with other conservation organizations, government, local stakeholders, and volunteers. There is still a lot of work to get done, and more is planned for 2022 and beyond. Support our continued efforts to recover native trout by donating today or join a local chapter to get involved.