Predicted Forage Fish Spawning Habitat in the Gulf Islands Using ShoreZone Data, 2017

Forage fish are those species that are prey for larger fish, birds and marine mammals, including many commercially important species. They support important marine food webs and are therefore important species for management and conservation. Two species of forage fish, Pacific Sand Lance (Ammodytes hexapterus) and Surf Smelt (Hypomesus pretiosus), are found in British Columbia waters and use intertidal beaches for spawning. This use of the intertidal makes these populations more vulnerable as they are more likely to come into conflict with anthropogenic uses of that zone. This makes it important that suitable spawning beaches are identified so they can be properly managed. The purpose of this project was to build on previous exercises comparing ShoreZone data to known forage fish spawning beaches to determine which ShoreZone attributes are associated with those beaches. The intent was to build a model that can successfully predict suitable forage fish spawning beaches for management and planning purposes where ground survey data does not currently exist and to help direct future ground-based research. This project took the results from those previous studies and applied the suggested model to five of the southern Gulf Islands in British Columbia where both ShoreZone mapping and ground survey data exist. The results of that model were then compared to the existing ground surveys in the Gulf Islands and the resulting data was used to refine the model.