Wild Fish Communities, Oil Sands Region

Wild fish community data (species, abundance, diversity, length, weight) are available for tributaries of the Athabasca River (Steepbank, Ells, Firebag, High Hills, Dunkirk, Horse, Muskeg, Tar, Calumet, Dover, McKay, Alice, Red Clay, Eymundson, Big Creek, Pierre, Hangingstone, Beaver, and Poplar) and for rivers and creeks adjacent to Christina Lake (Christina River, Sunday Creek, Birch Creek, Sawbones Creek, Jackfish River and Unnamed Creek).

The composition and diversity of fish communities in these waterbodies have been evaluated over time to identify changes in the presence and abundance of fish species in areas varying in proximity to industry activity (open-pit mining and steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD)), including sites located outside of the Athabasca Oil Sands deposit that are not influenced by industry. Sites located outside of the development footprint or deposit provide information on the natural variability of these fish communities over time. Baseline conditions were established through autumn surveys (non-lethal) of fish communities in 2013, 2017-2019, and 2021-present, which have assisted in tracking spatial and temporal changes in fish communities in the region. Length, weight, species identification, and external assessment were performed on each fish collected before being returned to the water at the site of capture. This monitoring activity compliments and supports the Wild Fish Health program.

Supplemental Information

Regional Aquatic Monitoring Program (RAMP) Alberta:

http://www.ramp-alberta.org/data/Fisheries/default.aspx

Supporting Projects:

Canada-Alberta Oil Sands Environmental Monitoring

Datasets available for download

• View ECCC Data Mart (English)HTML
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• View ECCC Data Mart (French)HTML
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• Digital Object Identifier (DOI)XML
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• Arctic grayling
• Freshwater fish
• Iowa darter
• Nature and Environment
• Oil sands
• Oil sands monitoring
• brassy minnow
• brook stickleback
• burbot
• fathead minnow
• finescale dace
• fish distribution
• fish populations
• flathead chub
• goldeye
• lake chub
• longnose dace
• longnose sucker
• ninespine stickleback
• northern pike
• northern redbelly dace
• pearl dace
• slimy sculpin
• spoonhead sculpin
• spottail shiner
• trout-perch
• walleye
• white sucker
• wild fish
• yellow perch

Additional Info

• Maturity Level 1 (46%)
• Maturity Level 2 (38%)
• Maturity Level 3 (22%)
• Maturity Level 4 (0%)
• Maturity Level 5 (0%)
• Maturity Level 6 (0%)

Field	Value
Last Updated	October 20, 2025, 02:40 (UTC)
Created	October 20, 2025, 02:40 (UTC)
Domain / Topic Domain or topic of the dataset being cataloged.
Title Title for the Dataset.	Wild Fish Communities, Oil Sands Region
Description A description of the dataset.	Wild fish community data (species, abundance, diversity, length, weight) are available for tributaries of the Athabasca River (Steepbank, Ells, Firebag, High Hills, Dunkirk, Horse, Muskeg, Tar, Calumet, Dover, McKay, Alice, Red Clay, Eymundson, Big Creek, Pierre, Hangingstone, Beaver, and Poplar) and for rivers and creeks adjacent to Christina Lake (Christina River, Sunday Creek, Birch Creek, Sawbones Creek, Jackfish River and Unnamed Creek). The composition and diversity of fish communities in these waterbodies have been evaluated over time to identify changes in the presence and abundance of fish species in areas varying in proximity to industry activity (open-pit mining and steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD)), including sites located outside of the Athabasca Oil Sands deposit that are not influenced by industry. Sites located outside of the development footprint or deposit provide information on the natural variability of these fish communities over time. Baseline conditions were established through autumn surveys (non-lethal) of fish communities in 2013, 2017-2019, and 2021-present, which have assisted in tracking spatial and temporal changes in fish communities in the region. Length, weight, species identification, and external assessment were performed on each fish collected before being returned to the water at the site of capture. This monitoring activity compliments and supports the Wild Fish Health program. Supplemental Information Regional Aquatic Monitoring Program (RAMP) Alberta: http://www.ramp-alberta.org/data/Fisheries/default.aspx Supporting Projects: Canada-Alberta Oil Sands Environmental Monitoring
Tags / Keywords Keywords/tags categorizing the dataset.	Arctic grayling Freshwater fish Iowa darter Nature and Environment Oil sands Oil sands monitoring brassy minnow brook stickleback burbot fathead minnow finescale dace fish distribution fish populations flathead chub goldeye lake chub longnose dace longnose sucker ninespine stickleback northern pike northern redbelly dace pearl dace slimy sculpin spoonhead sculpin spottail shiner trout-perch walleye white sucker wild fish yellow perch
Format (CSV, XLS, TXT, PDF, etc) File format of the dataset.
Dataset Size Dataset size in megabytes.
Metadata Identifier Metadata identifier – can be used as the unique identifier for catalogue entry
Published Date Published date of the dataset.	2020-01-15
Time Period Data Span (start date) Start date of the data in the dataset.
Time Period Data Span (end date) End date of time data in the dataset.
GeoSpatial Area Data Span A spatial region or named place the dataset covers.

Field	Value
Access category Type of access granted for the dataset (open, closed, service, etc).
License License used to access the dataset.	Open Government Licence - Canada
Limits on use Limits on use of data.
Location Location of the dataset.	https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/cb03b823-b2b5-4894-a270-6c41923c0cde
Data Service Data service for accessing a dataset.
Owner Owner of the dataset.	Environment and Climate Change Canada | Environnement et Changement climatique Canada
Contact Point Who to contact regarding access?	Government of Canada; Environment and Climate Change Canada, 1-800-668-6767, [email protected]
Contact Point Email The email to contact regarding access?
Publisher Publisher of the dataset.
Publisher Email Email of the publisher.	[email protected]
Author Author of the dataset.
Author Email Email of the author.
Accessed At Date the data and metadata was accessed.

Field	Value
Identifier Unique identifier for the dataset.	10.18164/3a5d44c0-3552-4834-bca4-63ef584531b4
Language Language(s) of the dataset
Link to dataset description A URL to an external document describing the dataset.
Persistent Identifier Data is identified by a persistent identifier.
Globally Unique Identifier Data is identified by a persistent and globally unique identifier.	Yes
Contains data about individuals Does the data hold data about individuals?
Contains data about identifiable individuals Does the data hold identifiable data about individual?
Contains Indigenous Data Does the data hold data about Indigenous communities?
Portal Type Platform type of the source portal.

Field	Value
Version Version of the datatset	None
Source Source of the dataset.	None
Version notes Version notes about the dataset.
Is version of another dataset Link to dataset that it is a version of.
Other versions Link to datasets that are versions of it.
Provenance Text Provenance Text of the data.
Provenance URL Provenance URL of the data.
Temporal resolution Describes how granular the date/time data in the dataset is.
GeoSpatial resolution in meters Describes how granular (in meters) geospatial data is in the dataset.
GeoSpatial resolution (in regions) Describes how granular (in regions) geospatial data is in the dataset.

Field	Value
Indigenous Community Permission Who holds the Indigenous Community Permission. Who to contact regarding access to a dataset that has data about Indigenous communities.
Community Permission Community permission (who gave permission).
The Indigenous communities the dataset is about Indigenous communities from which data is derived.

Field	Value
Number of data rows If tabular dataset, total number of rows.
Number of data columns If tabular dataset, total number of unique columns.
Number of data cells If tabular dataset, total number of cells with data.
Number of data relations If RDF dataset, total number of triples.
Number of entities If RDF dataset, total number of entities.
Number of data properties If RDF dataset, total number of unique properties used by the triples.
Data quality Describes the quality of the data in the dataset.
Metric for data quality A metric used to measure the quality of the data, such as missing values or invalid formats.

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