Be WaterSmart . . . Be FishingSmart . . . LIVE BAITFISH In a canoe, you must carry*: ere are a few rules, regulations* and POSSESSION PROHIBITED The • a Canadian-approved Personal­ Flotation Device (PFD) or lifejacket of Hremin­d­­ers while fishing in Algon­quin: appropriate size for each person on board IN ALGONQUIN PARK • Trout fishing season opens • a buoyant heaving line not less than 15 metres in length La possession de Live Baitfish April 23, 2011. • a manual propelling device (e.g., paddle) or an anchor with not less than poissons-appâts Possession • No live baitfish are permitted. vivants est interdite Prohibited in 15 metres of cable, rope, or chain • No fishing within 100 metres of dans le parc Algonquin • a bailer (at least 750 mL) or a manual water pump and hose Algonquin. Park aven a water control dam. A Natural and Cultural History Digest • a sound-signalling device (e.g., whistle) or appliance • No fishing within 300 metres • navigation lights that meet standards (e.g., watertight flash­­­light) Algonquin Provincial Park down­stream of Lake Opeongo’s * refer to the Safe Boating Guide for complete details R Annie Bay dam. • Daily catch and possession limit for Vol. 52, No. 1 July Issue July 7, 2011 Did you catch a tagged fish? . . . Lake Trout is 2 per person (1 per Fish have been tagged in a number of We will provide the date of tagging, person with a Conservation Licence). Park lakes, including: Canisbay, the fish’s size, sex, state of maturity • Daily catch and possession limit Harry, Louisa, Opeongo, Scott, and and approximate age. Provide the tag for Brook Trout is 5 per person Smoke. We tag fish primarily to make number and the fish’s fate (released (no more than two of which can be an estimate of population sizes, sur- or killed) along with a contact number Lake Trout); [2 per person with not more than one Lake Trout with a vival and growth rates. or address (e-mail preferred) to re- FR Check the regulations. Report violations to Conservation Licence]. Consultez les règlements. Signalez les infractions commises en composant le (phone number) If you catch a tagged fish, please ceive this information. Do not remove • Worms areOJ Checknot the regulations.native Report to violations Algonquin to report it to any Park office; the tag from fish you intend to release. • Be aware some lakes have slot limits and remaining 1-877-MNR-TIPS worms (847-7667) should be taken Harkness Laboratory Thank you for your help! [check the Algonquin: Information home or thrown in the trash – not on of Fisheries Research Guide (tabloid) for a list]. the ground! P.O. Box 110, Whitney, ON, K0J 2M0 Tag # * refer to the Ontario Recreational Fishing Regulations Summary for complete details www.harkness.ca • (613) 637-2103; or Algonquin Fisheries Assessment Unit Be TrailSmart . . . Be FireSmart . . . P.O. Box 219, Whitney, ON, K0J 2M0 e are just 613-637-2780 ext. 270, 271, or 274. • Keep campfires Wopening our small and use hiking, biking and existing fire pits. Lake Opeongo Ice-out Dates Since 1964 Showing Trend backpacking trails for • Ensure that the season — you may Dr. Mark Ridgway holding a Blackfin Cisco. May 16 – latest date leaves, needles May 15 come across downed and twigs are trees, mud or flooded sections. With cleared at least The Lazarus Fish May 10 hundreds of kilometres of trails in one metre by Brad Steinberg Algonquin, it takes our dedicated staff May 5 around the Now we should clarify that we are several weeks to clean the trails after s the busy summer season finally campfire. starts for our visitors, we can’t help not suggesting that re-incarnation, Apr 30 the long winter. A • Never leave a fire unattended. but wonder what new and exciting dis- resurrection, or any such divine inter- If you are going on a day-hike, know Apr 25 coveries will happen in 2011. It seems like vention has taken place like it did in the length of the trail and give yourself • Thoroughly extinguish all fires. every year researchers in Algonquin Park the Bible, but we think a miracle has enough time to get back to your happened none-the-less. Apr 20 decipher another one of nature’s mysteries. vehicle before dark. Apr 15 We have shared many of these discoveries Scientists at the Harkness Laboratory Compiled by with you, but this issue marks a first for for Fisheries Research (located on Lake Ontario Ministry of Apr 10 Natural Resources: The Raven – reporting on a species that, Opeongo) have discovered a fish that April 7 – earliest date Algonquin Fisheries like the biblical Lazarus, has come back was officially considered extinct. And Assessment Unit The Raven is available online at www.algonquinpark.on.ca and a limited number of complete sets 1964 '66 '68 '70 '72 '74 '76 '78 '80 '82 '84 '86 '88 '90 '92 '94 '96 '98 2000 '02 '04 '06 '08 '10 '12 '14 from the dead. they found it swimming alive and well in Year of the previous year’s Raven are available at the Visitor Centre or the main gates. This area of Ontario, including what – altering and twisting food webs that had is now Algonquin Park, had recently existed for millenia. Zebra Mussels, Round (geologically speaking) been freed from Gobies, Alewife, Ruffe, and Rainbow the crushing weight of glaciers - billions Smelt are just a few of the 130+ invasive of tonnes of ice that had squeezed and species that have been introduced to the compressed the land. Great Lakes with disastrous results. Rainbow of Destruction Released from this pressure the land These impacts were particularly dramatic ot all the discoveries that our has millions of smelt. Baby trout, perch began to rise, increasing in height until the on cisco. Whether it was one particular researchers make are happy and walleye don’t stand a chance and massive torrents of water that drained the pressure or the cumulative ‘death by a N stories. Last year Harkness scientists the natural food chain in this lake has Great Lakes shifted their flow to the south thousand cuts’, by the 1960s it appears discovered just how destructive an now been irreparably altered. following the route we see today. that Blackfin Cisco were all but gone from invasive species can be. While studying the Great Lakes. A few scattered records Perhaps the most alarming of all is When that happened many fish were the biodiversity of fishes in Golden surfaced from time to time from inland that we know of at least two lakes in ‘stranded’, left behind in Algonquin Lake, just outside Algonquin Park, they lakes like Lake Nipigon, but most experts Algonquin Park, North Tea Lake and Tim Blackfin Cisco Lakes, where they continued to thrive, found Rainbow Smelt in large numbers. considered this fish extinct. Lake, where Rainbow Smelt have been cut off and isolated from their relatives in not one, but two Algonquin Lakes! The identify. But the researchers needed to Rainbow Smelt are naturally found along introduced, almost certainly by anglers the Great Lakes. Until last year when researchers Blackfin Cisco, previously considered confirm what they believed to be almost the eastern seaboard of the United using them for bait. There is a real Thousands of years passed, and the Great discovered a fish they had never seen extinct, survives here in Algonquin Park! impossible. To be sure, samples of the States but not in Ontario. However, they potential that these invasive fish could Lakes continued to support healthy, vibrant before. Pictures, phone calls to other fish were sent to a lab for genetic testing have been introduced into many lakes by wreak havoc on our trout fishery. The The Harkness Laboratory has been home fish communities but then something experts and access to archived museum using DNA. The results confirmed their anglers who use them for bait, and are extent of their impact in Algonquin is not to a team of leading fisheries research changed. With European settlement specimens preserved in formaldehyde suspicions that these fish were indeed now spreading across Ontario’s lakes. yet known, but our team of researchers scientists for 75 years. In that time many came pressures on Great Lakes fish. for over half a century confirmed their Blackfin Cisco. from the Harkness Laboratory of fascinating projects have been undertaken. Commercial harvesting reduced many suspicion. The Blackfin Cisco is not Rainbow smelt are skinny, silvery fish Fisheries Research is on the case and Always well known for their pioneering fish populations. Dams fragmented the extinct – it has survived in at least two that measure up to 20cm long. Despite Blackfin Cisco live in deep water areas of will be investigating this summer. We work on Smallmouth Bass, Brook Trout journeys of long distance migratory fish Algonquin lakes. The lack of development, their small size they are predators, eating lakes and feed on freshwater shrimp and will keep you up to date on the status of and Lake Trout, the Lab has expanded any smaller fish they can catch. These in turn are preyed upon by larger fish like like eels and sturgeon. Pollution climbed easy human access, commercial fishing Rainbow Smelt in Algonquin Park lakes. its work looking at the biodiversity of Lake Trout. They grow up to 50cm long its way through the food web increasing and, most importantly, the lack of invasive barracuda-like predators can literally form Algonquin Lakes. a ‘wall’ of predators, devouring all small You can help keep Algonquin Park lakes and can weigh up to 1kg. That they still in toxicity all the way. And, perhaps the species have allowed this rare but beautiful deadliest impact, dozens upon dozens of fish to survive here in Algonquin Park. And fish they encounter, including young trout. healthy by NEVER using live baitfish, Exciting discoveries are nothing new for exist in Algonquin is truly amazing. invasive species entered the Great Lakes we think that qualifies as a miracle. and reporting anyone using live baitfish the Harkness researchers. The Shortjaw To fully understand this miracle we need The scary thought about the discovery to Park staff or to 1-888-MNR-TIPS Cisco and the Opeongo Whitefish are two of Rainbow Smelt in Golden Lake was to appreciate how these fish came to (1-888-667-8477). other rare fish that have been discovered that there were hardly any other fish Algonquin Park and why they were wiped As the glaciers melted northward Report invasive species wherever you here in Algonquin Park lakes. But imagine 10,000 years ago, an enormous found - just thousands and thousands out everywhere else. Their story starts find them to www.invadingspecies.org. their surprise when they started catching a several thousand years ago after the waterbody (glacial Lake Algonquin) of smelt. In fact, estimates of smelt formed in the basins of present- fish that isn’t supposed to exist anymore! last ice age covered this area of North in the lake number up to 10,000 per To learn more about research and lakes Furthermore – they were found in healthy day Lakes Huron and Michigan. hectare meaning Golden Lake literally visit www.algonquinpark.on.ca. America. For a while it drained east numbers in both Hogan and Radiant lakes. At this time the entire watershed of the across the northern part of Algonquin Park. Identifying types of cisco (a small member Great Lakes did not flow as it does now – of the whitefish family) is not an easy task. instead it flowed over the north and east There are several different species and part of what is now Algonquin Park. sometimes the differences are subtle – such as the number of gill rakers inside the Within this mighty thrust of water lived throat. Plus ciscos can adapt to different many different types of fish: trout and habitats and have subtle variations within minnows, sculpins and suckers, white- the species as well. Blackfin Cisco, fish and cisco – all swimming above the however, are relatively large and have same areas we now hike, portage and black fins, making them much easier to canoe over. Night echograms from acoustic surveys on Golden Lake, showng dense aggregations of smelt.