The Blue Fish Radio Show

Red tides and blue-green algae outbreaks are wreaking havoc along hundreds of miles of Florida’s coastlines and killing marine life. Some causes may be natural, but human actions and climate change are contributing to what many consider to be the worst fish kills Florida has ever experienced. Link to hear Brett Fitzgerald, Executive Director of the Angler Action Foundation, describe the true exten...

This week on Blue Fish Radio more on BC’s struggling Rainbow populations with Ph. D candidate Andrew Kadykalo. Andrews research includes understanding the decision-making/governance of rainbow trout fisheries in B.C. He’s spending his summer interviewing government employees and other key stakeholders, and shares with us the struggles he’s discovering re: modern fisheries management. Link here to...

Sir Sandford Fleming College is ground zero for anyone in Ontario looking to start a career in resource management and enforcement. Today’s guest on Blue Fish Radio is the College’s new Vice President of Academia Dr. Tom Weegar. Listen as Dr Weegar highlights the many exciting developments and career opportunities that make Fleming College a leader in their field this week on Blue fish Radio.

David Stibbe, a local educator and founder of Ottawa City Rafting, is expanding with his launch of the non-profit organization River Rangers. With partners like Ottawa River Keeper and Water Rangers, he plans to introduce youth to the history and ecology of rivers, and with assistance from Blue Fish Canada, fish and fishing as well. Link to Blue Fish Radio to hear David Stibbe and Lawrence Gunther...

Dr. Trevor Pitcher is the Executive Director of the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research located at the University of Windsor, and the man behind the brand new Freshwater Restoration Ecology Centre. Thanks to the work being undertaken by these centers of research, many of the original native Great lakes fish species are on the rebound. Link here to learn which fish species were the fir...

PhD candidate Amanda Jeanson at Carleton University’s “Fish Ecology and Conservation Physiology” program, part of the Cooke Lab, is in BC to find out why their inland recreational rainbow trout fisheries are in decline. Her focus is the Thompson and Chilcotin river systems. Amanda’s research has implications for fisheries management and policy development. It’s all part of a larger research projec...

Sean Simmons is the Founder of Anglers Atlas and has a passion and admiration for citizen science as undertaken by Canada’s top recreational anglers. This week on Blue fish Radio Sean explains how he manages to provide anglers with free access to over 250,000 bathamatric maps of Canada in exchange for data collected from citizen scientists about their favorite fishing locations. The data establish...

Michael E. Sklad, Founder and President of Fishing Friendzy, is super excited about launching the new Youth Fishing League. The best part is it is designed to expand to communities all across North America. Support for the League comes from organizations such as the Credit Valley Conservation Authority and a number of industry partners. Link to hear Michael and Lawrence discuss why establishing fi...

Aquatic invasive plants are labeled invasive due to their highly disruptive impacts on wetlands, lakes and rivers. Thankfully, they’re on the radar of Ducks Unlimited. Work DU is undertaking in the Great Lakes Basin to protect coastal wetlands includes controlling the highly invasive aquatic plant, European water chestnut, and surveillance and monitoring along eastern Lake Ontario and the St. Lawr...

Dr Ken Drouillard at the University of Winsor is a lead researcher with the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research. His findings serve to better assess fish health and how the Ontario government establishes fish consumption advisories, and when more mitigation work is called for to eliminate toxic hot-spots. Ontario’s fish Consumption Advisories currently cover 2,400 locations throughout...

Kat Kavanagh is the founder and Executive Director of Water Rangers. The program empowers citizen scientists to learn and gather water samples to be shared on line. Link to hear Kat explain the [program and tools this week on Blue fish Radio. Go to waterrangers.ca to learn more, and join in!

Cold water fish species are especially vulnerable to climate change. Taylor Ridderbusch is Trout Unlimited America’s specialist on cold water Great Lakes issues and our guest this week on Blue fish Radio. Link to hear what TU is up to ensure the future of cold water fish species this week on Blue Fish Radio. Link here for a very good overview of the most recent work undertaken by Trout Unlimited w...

Lena Azeez from Watershed Watch Salmon Society is working with communities from British Columbia’s lower mainland to draft and pass a resolution that underscores their commitment to safeguard fish habitat. This sort of sentiment often gets lost when flood prevention strategies are implemented; however, one shouldn’t come at the expense of the other. Fish habitat and impacts on fish health need to...

Dams and barriers are often considered positive landscape features because they can generate power, provide recreational opportunities, block invasive species, and prevent contaminant and disease transfer upstream. The flip side of that coin is that barriers can also reduce ecosystem function by reducing species richness, fragmenting habitats, impairing animal movements, impounding water, increasi...

Dr. Jeff Ridal is the Executive Director of the St. Lawrence River Institute of Environmental Sciences. Jeff is this week’s guest on Blue Fish Radio and outlines what the Institute’s numerous scientists are hard at work researching. This year also marks the 25th anniversary of the Research Symposium organized by the Institute and held at the OPG Visitor Centre in Cornwall May 30 and 31. Link to he...

Musky Canada Sport Fish and Research came into being to introduce conservation measures into the sport of Musky fishing. For over 40 years there now 700 members from the 13 different Canadian chapters have been supplying the Ministry of Natural Resources with catch-and-release logs to aid in Musky research. This year the organization has funded three different research projects, including one on L...

The Upper St Lawrence River Protection Network is the creation of Karen Cooper at the St. Lawrence River Institute for Environmental Studies in Cornwall. The Network serves as a resource for coordination and distribution of river-related research and mitigation information; encourages existing and future ongoing research, education and remediation on both sides of the river; and, serves as a voice...

Commissioner Gordon Walker is one of three Canadian Commissioners who have pledged to uphold the terms of a 1909 water boundary treaty between Canada and the U.S. Governments have referred over 140 disputes to the International Joint Commission to resolve, and all but two have been settled by the six-person Commission. Holding the Canadian and U.S. governments to account on issues concerning water...

Jason Barnucz is a trained research biologist and the Conservation Director for the Ontario Bass Nation. Last year he challenged the over 700 members of the Ontario Bass Nation to take the next step and “Pledge to Pitch”, a BASS Nation program designed to ensure used soft plastic fishing lures are disposed of in a sustainable way. It lead to four of the 22 BASS member clubs receiving the Shimano J...

Ten years after Blue Fish Canada’s president launched the world’s first Blind Fishing Boat, he’s still getting tons of interest from those who want to learn more about fishing and navigating blind. Not only does Lawrence catch plenty of fish, allowing him to best most of his sighted competition, he’s also the inventor of the world’s first “Blind Fishing Boat”. Listen this week on Blue Fish Radio a...

While most all other Orca or Killer Whale populations are growing in size, and in certain cases, setting new population records, the southern and northern residential Orca populations along Canada’s west coast have not fared as well. At the same time, the Chinook salmon these two resident whale populations depend on almost exclusively, are themselves in decline. Scientists and conservationists ali...

Foreign species are invading the Great Lakes in numbers and varieties that are continuously, profoundly and drastically reconfiguring our aquatic ecosystems. What do we need to know and how can we play a role in preventing the introduction and spread of invasives is this week’s topic on Blue Fish Radio. Link to hear Lawrence Gunther speak with biologist Rachel Barrington about her work to inform a...

FB: Dr. Chris Harvey-Clarke is the Director of Animal Care for all three Dalhousie University east-coast campuses. His passion is the study of Greenland sharks to the point now that he’s the go-to guy for TV programs such as Discovery channel’s Daily Planet and the River Monster series. Way more than that though, Chris is a world leader in his field, and is working hard to train Canada’s next gene...

Max Finkelstein had an idea that the rivers of Canada and the United States shared much in common, and organized a team of paddlers to prove his point. Together they paddled a voyager canoe from Ottawa to Washington; a trip that would prove far more challenging than first surmised. Link to hear Max talk about the risks of paddling through some of North America’s largest cities this week on Blue fi...

Few have accomplished anything close to what Max Finkelstein has undertaken with a paddle and canoe. He’s literally traversed Canada along throughout the north, and has led an expedition from Ottawa to Washington. Along the way he published two books about his adventures. Max is still at it, but took some time to share some of his hard-earned lessons on Blue fish Radio in a two part series. Part o...