EFFECTS OF PLACER MINING DISCHARGE ON HEALTH AND FOOD OF ARCTIC GRAYLING 1

• Published in: JAWRA Journal of the American Water Resources Association
• Main Authors: Reynolds, James B., Simmons, Rodney C., Burkholder, Alan R.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 1989
• Subjects: Earth-Surface Processes; Water Science and Technology; Ecology; Arctic; Fairbanks; Arctic grayling; Thymallus arcticus; Alaska
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-1688.1989.tb03100.x; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1111%2Fj.1752-1688.1989.tb03100.x; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1752-1688.1989.tb03100.x

ABSTRACT: During the summers of 1982, 1983, and 1985, we assessed the effects of placer mining sedimentation on Arctic grayling, Thymallus arcticus , in the headwaters of Birch Creek, northeast of Fairbanks, Alaska. We compared differences between two streams (one that was undisturbed and one with mining activity upstream) near the confluence. Studies of caged fish demonstrated that, if grayling could not escape from streams carrying mining sediments, they would either die at high rates (sac fry) or suffer gill damage, starvation, and slowed maturation (age‐O fingerlings and age‐2 juveniles). Indirect effects of sedimentation, through loss of summer habitat for feeding and reproduction, may more severely affect grayling populations than the direct effects of sedimentation on the health and survival of individual fish.