Atlantic Salmon Smolt Assessment – Terra Nova River

FABEC will conduct a follow-up of their 2024 and 2025 smolt assessments of Terra Nova River as part of ASF’s Wild Salmon Watersheds program and their 5-year commitment to understand salmon productivity in the Terra Nova. The project will enhance existing information, leading to a stronger understanding of the river’s salmon population demographics, location of critical habitat, and if there are issues with in-river survival and spawning success. This project will enhance efforts to understand the cause(s) of declining returns by quantifying smolt production and estimating marine survival. While adult counts on Terra Nova River date back to 1956, these provide little information on population demographics, juvenile health, and other life stages that could provide insight into critical habitats, ecosystem health, and limiting factors. This will build on the 2024 and 2025 effort to estimate how many smolts leave the river and build a baseline of smolt numbers to compare against adult returns.

Using the Rotary Screw Trap (RST) and mark recapture technique provides insights on the health of the Terra Nova River smolt population and a realistic estimate of Atlantic salmon survival during the marine stage in their life history. In 2025 procedures were refined and deficiencies identified and addressed. Lessons learned from both 2024 and 2025 in site selection and RST operation will be documented in the final report to aid future RST operations in other rivers in the province.

This follow-up study will validate the utility of RSTs to enumerate downstream movements of Atlantic salmon smolt in Terra Nova River (TNR). It will: obtain a reliable estimate of smolt production and quantify biological characteristics such as smolt size, weight, and age to better understand the population structure and health of the river’s salmon population; undertake to determine adult returns; improve the knowledge of resident and sea-run brook trout, sea lamprey and American eel movements providing additional insights into ecosystem health; and document the number of captured smolt that have black spot disease (54.6% in 2025).