Description: <DIV STYLE="text-align:Left;"><DIV><DIV><P STYLE="margin:0 0 7 0;"><SPAN>Athabasca Rainbow trout have shown severe declines from historical abundances and are ranked as threatened under the provincial Wildlife Act, and as endangered by the national Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC). The 2017 Alberta Fish Sustainability Index (FSI) assessment confirmed these conservation designations, with all Athabasca Rainbow Trout populations classified as high risk. Careful management, conservation-focusing angling practices, and integrated land use management practices in key watersheds will be important in conserving native Rainbow Trout.</SPAN></P><P STYLE="margin:0 0 7 0;"><SPAN>Historically, of the 19 watersheds within their native Alberta range, Athabasca Rainbow trout were moderately to very abundant in 11 watersheds. Several watersheds on the fringe of core Athabasca Rainbow trout range held fish, but likely at lower densities as naturally warmer or colder waters were likely limiting. As of 2017, all Athabasca Rainbow trout watersheds were assessed as either low or very low abundance of adult fish. Healthy populations remain in isolated creeks but no longer exist within an entire watershed.</SPAN></P><P STYLE="margin:0 0 7 0;"><SPAN><SPAN>The Hydrologic Unit Code (HUC) Watersheds of Alberta represents a collection of four nested hierarchically structured drainage basin feature classes that have been created using the Hydrologic Unit Code system of classification developed by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) with accommodation to reflect the pre-existing Canadian classification system. The pour points associated with the delineation of these watersheds have also been included as a point feature class. The HUC Watersheds of Alberta consist of successively smaller hydrologic units that nest within larger hydrologic units, resulting in a hierarchal grouping of alphanumerically coded watersheds feature classes. These nesting watersheds feature classes were created using ArcHydro Tools v.2 (Alberta Environment and Parks) and are subject to periodic review and update. There are currently individual feature classes for HUC 2 (coarsest level), HUC 4, HUC 6, HUC 8 and HUC 10 (finest level). </SPAN></SPAN></P><P STYLE="margin:0 0 7 0;"><SPAN>This dataset is produced for the Government of Alberta and is available to the general public. Please consult the Distribution Information of this metadata for the appropriate contact to acquire this dataset.</SPAN></P><P STYLE="margin:0 0 0 0;"><SPAN /></P></DIV></DIV></DIV>
Copyright Text: Alberta Environment and Parks, Government of Alberta
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