The sheepshead: A true Great Lakes underdog
Freshwater drum swimming (Photo by Florida's Online Educational Clearinghouse)
I grew up a mere hour’s drive from majestic Lake Erie, and that meant lots of great fishing. The biggest thrills came when my dad and grandfather hired a charter boat to take us out for a day of reeling in Erie’s best game fish,...
Be a beaver believer
Beaver (Photo by Makedocreative/Wikimedia Commons)
Aside from the long list of initiatives celebrated today, April 7 is also a day to celebrate beavers! For starters, here’s a little beaver-inspired anecdote from our Alberta office: “There was once a young man who walked to work...
Something's Fishy: The legendary lamprey
The Lamprey, 2. The Pride, 1866 (Illustration by Robert Hamilton)
Anyone who knows me could tell you I’m really into folklore. Fairy tales, spooky stories and legendary accounts of people, places and mystical things have intrigued me for as long as I can remember. I'm also really into fish. So if there is...
The legend of the blue pike: An endangered species tale
Blue pike (Photo by New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation)
Species have come and gone for millennia, but the stories of those species that met their demise due to human activity have an especially strong emotional impact in the field of wildlife conservation. Such is the case concerning the legendary blue...
Of crappies and conservation
Black crappie (Photo by Eric Engbretson, USFWS)
If you've ever tossed a line into freshwater in eastern North America, there's a good chance that you've hooked a feisty, speckled panfish that puts up quite the struggle and is a year-round favourite of anglers everywhere. They go by a number of...
Spot the species on World Wetlands Day
Coastal wetlands of Sandy Island, eastern Georgian Bay coast, Ontario (Photo by NCC)
If one slogan can help us appreciate wetlands more, for me it would be: “wetlands are not wastelands.” In fact, the term “wetlands” represents a wide variety of habitats (such as bogs, marshes and swamps) that offer a rich...
Something's Fishy: The good, the bad and the goby
Round goby (Photo by Peter van der Sluijs/Wikimedia Commons)
Think of the meanest, toughest fish in a Canadian river. The one other species actively avoid, swimming faster as it approaches. Is it the longnose gar, with its mouth full of sharp teeth? Or the largemouth bass, a species which devours its prey...
Something's Fishy: The old fish and the lake
Juvenile bowfin from Ontario waters (Photo by Raechel Bonomo/NCC Staff)
What if I told you there are living fossils swimming in our waters right now? A few fish species that inhabit Canadian lakes and rivers have such ancient lineages, they are considered prehistoric. Some of these species swam alongside the...
How to set a river free
Just add water. Newly opened natural bypass channel! (Photo by NCC)
Perseverance is stubbornness with a purpose. It’s what river lovers need to remove a dam, and set a river free. Luckily for a beautiful trout stream that feeds into the Noisy River near Creemore, Ontario, the Nature Conservancy Canada (NCC)...
Something's Fishy: Ghosts of fishes past
A 60-day-old American paddlefish (Polyodon spathula) fry (Photo from Wiki Commons)
They’re there, lurking the depths of Canadian lakes and rivers, unseen by humans or other fishes. Ghosts of fishes extirpated or extinct from waters across Canada haunt other species and scientists alike. Their absence leaves an impression...
