Friday, February 6, 2026
Teams from the Ktunaxa Nation Council, Kootenai Tribe of Idaho (USA), Idaho Department of Fish and Game, and the province of British Columbia will conduct their annual burbot egg collection program on Moyie Lake during the last two weeks of February 2026.
Staff will catch, tag and release burbot as part of a conservation-stocking program to help recovery of the Lower Kootenay burbot population, a provincial government release said.
The egg collection from Moyie Lake, along with eggs collected in the Kootenay River in the United States, are reared in hatcheries to various life stages for release in selected areas of the Kootenay river system in Idaho and B.C.
The Lower Kootenay burbot population once supported First Nations fisheries, as well as recreational fisheries in Montana, Idaho and B.C., the release said. During the mid-1990s the population had fewer than 50 adult burbot remaining in the river and were at risk of extirpation.
In 2005, the Ktunaxa Nation Council, Kootenai Tribe of Idaho, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the University of Idaho and the B.C. government signed a conservation agreement with the The burbot recovery program starting in the Lower Kootenay in 2009.
“Hatchery-released burbot are surviving well in the Lower Kootenay system. However, due to habitat impacts from Libby Dam and floodplain alterations along the Kootenay River, the success of burbot spawning is inconsistent in the river. Moyie Lake egg collections are an essential component that hatcheries supplement until natural spawning is restored,” the release said.
The pilot recovery work at Moyie Lake has helped influence and benefit project methods of other burbot restoration initiatives, such as in the Upper Kootenay watershed., the release added.
