Salvelinus confluentus
Identification Tips:
• Typical salmon/trout body form
• Adults and older juveniles have Light coloured spots (white to pale pink or red) on dark background
• First year juveniles have wide parr marks, that may be as wide as tall.
• Extremely difficult to distinguish from Dolly Varden, especially as juveniles:
• Bull trout have larger adult body and larger, wider-spaced spots on back
• Upper jaw is longer than base of anal fin (about equal in Dolly Varden)
Conservation Status:
| British Columbia | Canada | Natureserve | |
| COSEWIC | Species at Risk Act | ||
| Blue List | Special Concern | None | G4T3, S2S3 |
Information Source: BC Conservation Data Centre: http://a100.gov.bc.ca/pub/eswp/
Life History:
• Spawn in fall; constructing redd (nest) in gravel
• Fry spend first summer among boulder and gravel along river margins
• Most rear in deep pools and sidechannels of streams for 2 to 4 years
• May live more than 25 years and grow to more than 85 cm
Later life history varies widely
• Some populations migrate extensively and within large river systems or between rivers and large lakes
• Some are resident in small streams
• Some from Pitt River and Squamish River migrate to sea like salmon
• Juveniles and small stream resident adults eat invertebrates drifting in current
• Larger adults eat fish
Habitat:
• Spawn in flowing water over gravel substrate often with groundwater upwelling
• Cold water, rarely above 15 C
• In lakes they occupy deep water by day and move into shallower areas to forage by night
• In large rivers usually close to bottom in slow current of pools under overhead cover
Range:
British Columbia
• Throughout interior except Okanagan and Kettle drainages
• Present in large rivers that cross the Coast Mountains, including the Fraser
• Absent from most smaller coastal drainages, Vancouver Island, and Haida Gwaii
Global
• Southern Yukon and Northwest Territory south through Alberta and BC to Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Nevada
• Historically in northern California
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Primary Information Source:
McPhail, J.D. 2007. The Freshwater Fishes of British Columbia. University of Alberta Press. Edmonton, Alberta.
