Lake Ontario Atlantic Salmon Tagging And Recapture Events

Lake Ontario recapture records for adult Atlantic salmon tagged by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry. The dataset tracks individual fish released as brood stock and reported by anglers, containing tagging and recapture dates, locations, and movement metrics. Records were last updated in March 2026.

Use Cases

• Analyze migration distance using the 'distance travelled' and 'location recaptured' fields.
• Calculate survival and recapture rates over time using 'tagging date', 'recapture date', and 'days since released'.
• Map release and recapture sites using 'location released' and 'location recaptured' for spatial movement analysis.
• Track individual fish life history via unique 'tag number/colour' identifiers across release and capture events.

Strengths

• Includes recapture events reported directly by anglers via tagged phone numbers.
• Tracks multiple movement metrics per fish: days since release and distance travelled.

Limitations

• Dataset size and total number of tagged fish are unknown, limiting statistical power assessment.
• Relies on voluntary angler reporting, which may introduce spatial and temporal reporting bias.

Provenance

Source

Government of Ontario, Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry.

Collection Method

Fish were tagged with streamer tags and released; data collected from angler reports of recaptures.

Time Range

null

Freshness

Updated March 2026.

Geography

Lake Ontario.