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FECPL’s white sucker migration work featured in local press (Northumberland Today)

 

“COBOURG – Three students from Carleton University’s Fish Ecology and Conservation Physiology Lab are nearly done wrapping up a two-month study on the migration biology of a white suckers and lamprey.

The principal investigator is Dr. Steven Cooke and the team leader is Dr. Kathryn Peiman.

A sheet from the university the students had with them noted the lab studies the migration biology of a wide range of freshwater and marine fishes, with particular emphasis on the factors that influence migration and reproductive success.

The group in Cobourg have tagged every adult sucker (500) that has passed through the lamprey dam north of King Street West.

Working on what is in the guts of sucker, they will see what bacteria is in the intestines to help see if there is a relationship to migration.

It is a multi-year project focusing on the migration biology of fishes entering Cobourg Creek. The students will evaluate how variation both within and among years in a fundamental life-history strategy (migration) interacts with individual variation in body shape, diet, behaviour, and physiology in a wild population.

Once placed on the fish the dart tags will show the route as they continue their upstream migration.

The work has been approved by Carleton University’s Animal Care Committee, and is being conducted under a Scientific Collector’s Permit from the MNRF.

If a person does find a fish with a dart tag, they are asked to report the number and when it was found to the email address on the tag.”

PETE FISHER/Northumberland Today