Project Watershed is very excited to announce the award of $1.4 million dollars of funding from the BC Salmon Restoration and Innovation Fund to support our forage fish research, monitoring and restoration!

As you may know, Project Watershed has been researching forage fish and their habitats for many years now. To date our work has focused on beach spawning forage fish, specifically Pacific sand lance and surf smelt.

December 8th was the first annual Pacific Sand Lance Day!

These skinny forage fish are understudied and important to our coastal ecosystem. Sand lance have over 100 known predators, and are particularly important to nesting sea birds. This eclectic fish buries into sandy sea beds, hibernates all winter, and spawns on beaches!

Pacific sandlance eggs ~ Aaron SchmidtBeach survery ~ Tom GrimmerSand sample under microscope ~ Aaron Schmidt Our winter Pacific sand lance season was kicked off with eggs being found on Cortes Island on November 6! Later in the month eggs were found at Shingle Spit...

The weather is looking like fall and with the brief skiff of snow recently Project Watershed staff are beginning to look to the winter forage fish season.

Project Watershed is conducting beach spawning forage fish surveys using visual egg searching methods, and new environmental DNA (eDNA) techniques. The egg search efforts have been conducted primarily with the help of dedicated community scientists who have been...

Announcing the 2023 Virtual BC Forage Fish Monitoring Network Spring Forum! This event is an opportunity for all those interested in the conservation of forage fish in British Columbia to come together and learn about the latest research and updates.