Investigation of reasons for Atlantic salmon declines and development of remedial approaches

This project will be a continuation of work started in 2024 and 2025 within the Rocky River and Salmon Cover watersheds in Eastern NL.  The work conducted to date by SAEN and their partners has been focussed primarily on the gathering of information within each watershed on issues that may be impacting Atlantic Salmon stocks within those watersheds in a negative way. The ultimate goal is to develop and implement a watershed management plan for those watersheds which can help curtail the trends in declining returns of anadromous salmon that have been documented by the resource managers in DFO.

SAEN identified some issues from the early assessment work that have been discussed and some very short-term objectives have been set in motion in terms of developing potential “low hanging fruit” type solutions and the accompanying detail plans, for things such as required permits. Consideration is also being given to potential funding and partners that would be required to implement such actions.

Such initial plans, however, do not address the potential for much broader initiatives that might have a more significant and long-term impact in the form of a broad-based watershed management plan.  In order to make that leap to the next logical phase, SAEN and its partners/ local stakeholders feel what is necessary for 2026 is:

• Hiring a qualified individual (intern) to do a thorough analysis of information collected in 2024/25 by SAEN and others (e.g. MUN, WSA, DFO) and compare that to the information available in SAEN files from previous works done in these watersheds. It is felt that this will be helpful in answering the key question of “what factors within the watershed are contributing to salmon declines?”
•  With that work completed, the intern can then identify whether there are any information gaps in what was collected in 2024/25, develop and plan the field work necessary to fill such gaps.
• This will enable SAEN and its partners to develop a strategic plan for implementing solutions and seeking the necessary funding to do so.
• Having the intern ultimately develop a first draft of a more comprehensive watershed management plan for the two watersheds. This will include consultations with stakeholders and partners that will be required to move forward in creating such plans.
• Hiring a field team to conduct additional survey work required (for example, it has already been identified that further work is necessary in the harder to access portions of the western side of Rocky River watershed that we could not complete in 2025). Should time and resources allow, some additional baseline information may also be collected on the Colinet and North Harbour River watersheds which are in close proximity to Rocky and of interest to local stakeholders such as the towns of Colinet/ Whitbourne and the Watershed Stewardship Association.