You are encouraged to attend the defence. The details of the defence and attendance information is included below:  

Date:  Monday, December 8, 2025

Time:  10:00 AM – 12:00 PM (PT)

Defence mode: Hybrid

In-Person Attendance: Senate Chambers, UNBC Prince George Campus  

Virtual Attendance: via Microsoft Teams 

Please contact the Office of Graduate Administration for information regarding remote attendance for online defences. 

To ensure the defence proceeds with no interruptions, please mute your audio and video on entry and do not inadvertently share your screen. The meeting will be locked to entry 5 minutes after it begins: please ensure you are on time.  

Thesis entitled:   CHARACTERIZING THE RECREATIONAL BURBOT FISHERY AT CARP LAKE, BRITISH COLUMBIA USING FISHER SURVEYS AND A NOVEL TAG-RECOVERY APPROACH

Abstract: 

Burbot (Lota lota) support popular recreational fisheries in the Omineca Region of British Columbia, yet there is little recent information regarding fishing effort, harvest, or fisher perspectives for this species. To gather baseline information on recreational burbot fishing, and develop burbot monitoring approaches that can be extended to regional burbot fisheries, I conducted fisher knowledge surveys at Carp Lake that provided estimates of effort and harvest as well as qualitative insights into fisher attitudes. Surveys indicated substantial summer burbot fishing activity and suggested that many recreational burbot fishers are willing to participate in monitoring programs and interested in burbot conservation. To more specifically investigate burbot harvest rates, I developed and tested a novel tag-recovery model that integrates high-reward and no-reward tags deployed twice per year. This novel model variation outperformed the previously developed twice-a-year model with only one tag type, with potential application to burbot and other data-limited harvest fisheries. Simulation experiments demonstrated how study duration and sample size, harvest, survival, and reporting probabilities, and assumption violations influence accuracy. Applying the model to Carp Lake data provided the first estimates of burbot harvest probability (0.069), survival probability (0.884), and reporting probability (0.731) in this system. Together, these studies demonstrate how fisher participation and improved tag-recovery methods can generate reliable fishery information in data-limited systems, supporting more effective management and conservation of burbot.

Defence Committee:  

Chair: Dr. Luke Harris, University of Northern British Columbia  

Supervisor: Dr. Eduardo Martins, University of Northern British Columbia  

Committee Member: Dr. Nikolaus Gantner, BC Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship

Committee Member: Dr. Mark Shrimpton, University of Northern British Columbia  

External Examiner: Dr. Will Warnock, BC Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship