At the end of 2024, the Comité ZIP du Haut Saint-Laurent received $482,872 in funding over three years to help aquatic species at risk.
This committee is a non-profit organization with a mission to “Promote and support, through regional cooperation, actions aimed at protecting, rehabilitating, and enhancing the resources and uses associated with the St. Lawrence River, with a view to sustainable development,” according to its website.
The funding was provided by the Canadian Nature Trust’s Aquatic Species at Risk Fund (CNFASAR) and will be used to execute a project that gathers knowledge and helps restore the population of grass pickerel, bridle shiner, and American eel from 2023 to 2026. The project was started as a collaboration between the Ambioterra group and the SCABRIC watershed organization, in collaboration with McGill University, the municipalities of Saint-Anicet and Sainte-Barbe, and the Friends of the Lac-Saint-François National Wildlife Area.
The goal of the project is to determine the presence and distribution of the three endangered species in Lac Saint-François and some of its tributaries. In 2021, the regional ZIP committee did a different project concerning fish habitat characterization. It also took place in Lac Saint-François and the south shore of Lake Saint-Louis, and potential habitat maps were created for four target species, including grass pickerel and bridle shiner. The new project will help Fisheries and Oceans Canada continue to collect information and explore different options for habitats. The recovery actions that are planned will hopefully reduce certain threats to these endangered animals.
The first phase of the project (plan development) is set to take place from 2023-2024 with the goal of developing a sampling plan for the three species, a sanitation survey plan for project tributaries, a sampling plan for environmental DNA, and the beginning of a geomatic study of turbidity and eutrophication in the water. Following that, phase two (knowledge acquisition, fieldwork) will take place in 2024-2025 and will include carrying out ichthyological inventories at known sites, characterization of sanitary facilities in Saint-Anicet and Sainte-Barbe, continuation of the geomatics study on water turbidity and eutrophication, and planning and coordination of restoration activities (owner recruitment). Finally, phase three (acquiring knowledge, restoring and raising awareness) will take place in 2025-2026 and include carrying out ichthyological inventories in potential habitats, environmental DNA sampling, and recovery activities. These recovery activities can include raising awareness and development of riparian buffer strips and windbreaks, educating fishermen about invasive exotic species, and more. (CF)