The waters of the Hillsborough River and its major tributaries once teemed with Atlantic Salmon. Much has changed in the past 200 years. By the later 1900s, there were very few salmon returning to the Hillsborough for spawning. Beginning in the mid-1990s, the PEI Trapper’s Pisquid River Enhancement Project (PREP), the Hillsborough River Association (HRA), Atlantic Salmon Federation, and other watershed groups working on the Hillsborough worked at combating some of the challenges causing this decline. They implemented erosion control programs using sediment traps, brush mats, and buffer zone and hedgerow planting to trap silt from fields and clay roads and reduce wind erosion. Beaver management zones were established to allow selective beaver dam removal to allow improved fish passage on mainstreams and certain dam bypasses (run-arounds) were modified to enable the migration of gaspereau and smelt to return to their upstream spawning areas. They installed rock weirs, deflectors, and other structures to create fish cover and holding pools.
It requires significant numbers of staff and considerable financial resources to do this work. The HRA and PREP extend their profound thanks to the Atlantic Salmon Conservation Foundation, the PEI Wildlife Conservation Fund, and the PEI Watershed Management Fund for their financial support over the years.
Their support this year has enabled the construction of two parallel rock weirs on Clark’s Creek and Pisquid River (right), removal of beaver dams and debris dams impeding fish passage, planting of hundreds of trees to enhance diversity and encourage seed production in the longer term within riparian zones as well as hedgerow planting, installation of brush mats and cover structures, and installation of well covers that potentially enable bats to overwinter in historic hand dug wells.
In river systems, nutrients that are not trapped in vegetation and the animals that are browsing this it, move downstream. Anadromous fish such as American smelt, gaspereau and Atlantic salmon spend most of their life in the estuaries and seas and return to spawn in freshwater. Their spawning runs herald the return of some of these nutrients upstream in the rivers. Many animals predate these spawners and the greatest mortality occurs at sea. Locally, bald eagles, great blue heron, belted kingfisher, striped bass, trout, red fox, raccoons, and a host of others including people predate them. The majority of fish survive to reach the spawning areas. However, some of the fertilized eggs and the fry they produce are subsequently eaten by fish and other animals. Thus, the watershed’s food web is enriched.
The creation of Leard’s Dam, located just above tide on the Pisquid River, blocked the passage of many fish species as did most head-of-tide dams across the province. While Leard’s Mill and its electric plant were long gone by 2005, fish passage was still an issue for smelt and gaspereau. This was especially so when the water level was low on the concrete water overflow slab. In 2005 and 2007, PREP and the Atlantic Salmon Federation worked with Stephen Cousins, the landowner, to strategically place rock to create a stepped ripple sequence which would allow smelt and other less capable fish migrants passage through the redesigned bypass. Once the results were reviewed in 2006, the design was tweaked in 2007 and smelt passage was achieved. The smelt then again returned to the former mill pond area and the reaches near it.'
Since then, working in collaboration, PREP and HRA crews have worked annually to address fish passage issues on the Pisquid and other tributaries of the Hillsborough and Vernon Rivers. Thanks to support by provincial and federal agencies, dozens of students and other employees were recruited to work on these systems to address fish passage challenges and enhance the watersheds. In 2020, for the first time in more than 100 years, smelt once again gained access to the Pisquid River above the Dunphy Road.
The HRA and PREP wish to thank to all these students and employees, their supervisors, the participating landowners, the individuals within government agencies who either provided technical advice and safety training or supported this work, and the many volunteers who allowed this to be achieved. It can be done!
