Kootenai River White Sturgeon Investigations; White Sturgeon Spawning and Recruitment Evaluation, Annual Report 2004-2005

摘要

The objective of this research was to determine the environmental requirements for successful spawning and recruitment of the Kootenai River white sturgeon Acipenser transmontanus population. Annual tasks include monitoring and evaluating the response of various life stages of Kootenai River white sturgeon to mitigation flows supplied by the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). Sampling for adult Kootenai River white sturgeon in 2004 began in March and continued into May. One hundred forty-two adult white sturgeon were captured with 4,146 hours of angling and set-lining effort in the Kootenai River. Kootenai River discharge and stage at Bonners Ferry in 2004 peaked in mid December. Discharge remained below 400 cubic meters per second (cms) until June 1; then, because of a systems operations request (SOR), increased and remained between 480 and 540 cms through the end of June. From July through September, discharge ranged from 360 to 420 cms, decreasing to 168 cms by the end of October. Discharge increased again to above 625 cms by November 4 to increase winter storage in Lake Koocanusa and ranged from 310 to 925 cms through the end of December. We monitored the movements of 31 adult sturgeon in Kootenay Lake, British Columbia (BC) and the Kootenai River from mid-March until late August 2004.