The Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) wrapped up its summer program in Rankin Inlet during the last week of August, contributing to DFO's ongoing acoustic telemetry fish-tracking project along western Hudson Bay.
Aquatic science biologist Connor Faulkner, of Rankin Inlet, was employed in his hometown for the summer with DFO as part of the fish-tracking project.
In explaining the project's tagging procedure, which lasts just over three minutes from start to finish, Faulkner said the fish are sedated, length and weight are taken, and a sterile acoustic tag is inserted into the body of the fish.
He said the cavity is then closed using simple stitches and a floy tag is inserted onto the back of the fish.
"The floy tag has contact information listed on it so that local fishers are able to contact DFO or the Rankin Inlet Hunters and Trappers Organization to notify them that they have captured a tagged fish and return it for compensation," Faulkner stated.
"DFO just wrapped up year three of this fish tracking project and has preliminary results upon analyzing the data, all of which will be openly shared back to the community of Rankin Inlet and partnered organizations through community reports and presentations this coming fall.
"With the char, as well, hopefully in the near future, we are very interested in doing some updated population counts of the river systems. So, I'm hoping at some meetings this fall, we can have some discussions with the hunters and trappers organization and the Kivalliq Wildlife Board to gauge their interest in doing some population counts of the river systems around Rankin Inlet to get updated numbers.
"As for the char population in future years, we're really just in year three of this study, so it's a little too early to say they're trending one way or another. You really do need a longer time period for your data set to be able to make those judgments."
