The Revelstoke area was the site of two white sturgeon releases last Wednesay as several First Nation’s groups took part in a ceremony at Centennial Park while Revelstoke elementary students and the Rod and Gun Club did the same at Shelter Bay.
In Revelstoke, members of several First Nations groups gathered for a day long sturgeon celebration at Centennial Park. In addition to the white sturgeon release, they hosted a variety of activities and games centred around Earth Day.
At Shelter Bay more than 100 students from Arrow Heights, Mount Begbie and Mountain View Elementary schools deposited close to 500 sturgeon in the Upper Arrow Lake.
The release was held there this year, instead of Centennial Park, because it’s where fisheries experts found most of the sturgeon were congregating, said Roger Ek, a sturgeon manager with Freshwater Fisheries of BC.
According to BC Hydro, fish release downstream of the Revelstoke Dam have been detected along the Columbia River as far south as Burton.
A total of 8,000 white sturgeon, each inserted with a radio tag and monitored, were released as part of this year’s program.
The program was started in 2001 and fish from that first release are now starting to reach weights of 18 kg, said Ek. The program was set up to restore white sturgeon to the Upper Columbia River.
View the slideshow above to see photos from the two events.