Shortnose Cisco

Species information

The following is a report on progress made towards the protection and recovery of Shortnose Cisco (Coregonus reighardi) in Ontario from 2007 to 2023, based on Ontario’s species-specific recovery policy. This report meets the legislative requirement for a review of progress under the Endangered Species Act, 2007 (ESA or “the Act”). Shortnose Cisco is listed as endangered on the Species at Risk in Ontario (SARO) List under the ESA.

Shortnose Cisco has been classified as a species at risk since 2000. Shortnose Cisco was originally classified as an endangered species and was listed as such under the ESA when it came into force in June 2008. A reassessment in 2017 confirmed this status.

The species-specific recovery policy for Shortnose Cisco, known as the government response statement (GRS) was published in 2019 and includes the government’s recovery goal for the species and the actions and priorities it intends to lead or support to help achieve that goal. The GRS considers science advice provided in the recovery strategy (published in 2018), regarding things such as the species biology, habitat needs, threats to survival, knowledge gaps and approaches to recovery when developing recovery actions for the species. As legislated in the Act, the purpose of this review is to report on progress made towards implementing the protection and recovery actions in the GRS. The review can also help identify opportunities to adjust and adapt the implementation of protection and recovery actions to achieve the recovery goal for the species.

Further information about Shortnose Cisco, including the threats that it faces and actions being taken to help protect and recover this species, is available on the Government of Ontario webpage for Shortnose Cisco. A summary on the progress towards the protection and recovery of Shortnose Cisco and an annual update on the broader species at risk program (i.e. the Introduction to the 2024 Review of Progress report) is available on the Review of Progress towards the Protection and Recovery of Ontario’s Species at Risk webpage.

Snapshot: Progress towards the protection and recovery of Shortnose Cisco

Progress towards meeting the recovery goal

• The recovery goal in the government response statement (GRS) for Shortnose Cisco in Ontario is to “increase knowledge of the species, the cisco complexes  ^{footnote 1[1]}   and their habitat and if populations are found to exist, mitigate threats to the Shortnose Cisco”.
• Progress has been made towards implementing all of the government-led actions. Progress has been made towards implementing all of the government-supported recovery objectives and the majority of the associated actions. Examples of progress include:
  • protecting and restoring the Great Lakes including work underway to implement the Ontario Great Lakes Strategy that maintains the quality of deepwater habitat previously utilized by Shortnose Cisco
  • investigation of the taxonomic uncertainty surrounding the cisco complex species
  • collaborating with federal and jurisdictional partners to implement fisheries monitoring programs and research
• Based on progress to date, the overall direction provided in the GRS should continue to guide recovery efforts for Shortnose Cisco. For example, further work is required to:
  • investigate the historic cisco species samples to determine whether the Shortnose Cisco occurred in other parts of the Great Lakes
  • develop educational tools to help with the identification and reporting of any new potential records of the species

Occurrences and distribution

• Two populations^{footnote 2[2]}   of Shortnose Cisco have been documented in Ontario, one in Lake Ontario and one in Lake Huron. Currently, both of these populations are extirpated (i.e., species no longer exists in Ontario).
• The Natural Heritage Information Centre (NHIC) has received 163 records of the species based on observations from a variety of sources made between 1915 and 1985.

Government-supported stewardship projects

• Supporting our partners through the Species at Risk Stewardship Program is an important government-led action identified in the GRS for the species. To date, no stewardship projects have been performed for this species.

Supporting human activities while ensuring appropriate support for species recovery

• The Government of Ontario has issued one ‘protection and recovery’ permit for this species under clause 17(2)(b) of the ESA.

Reporting on the progress towards the protection and recovery of Shortnose Cisco

The implementation of government-led and government-supported actions demonstrates progress towards reaching the desired objectives and the recovery goal set out in the GRS.

Progress towards implementing government-led actions

Progress has been made towards implementing all of the government-led actions identified in the GRS. Common actions for the government to lead as it works towards achieving a species’ recovery goal include:

• Educate other agencies and authorities involved in planning and environmental assessment processes on the protection requirements under the ESA.
• Encourage the submission of Shortnose Cisco data to the Ontario’s central repository through the citizen science project that they receive data from (i.e., iNaturalist.ca) and directly through the Natural Heritage Information Centre.
• Undertake communications and outreach to increase public awareness of species at risk in Ontario.
• Continue to protect Shortnose Cisco and its habitat through the ESA.
• Support conservation, agency, municipal and industry partners, and Indigenous communities and organizations to undertake activities to protect and recover Shortnose Cisco. Support will be provided where appropriate through funding, agreements, permits (including conditions) and/or advisory services.
• Encourage collaboration, and establish and communicate annual priority actions for government support in order to reduce duplication of efforts.
• Conduct a review of progress toward the protection and recovery of Shortnose Cisco within five years of the publication of this document.

Additionally, the government has directly undertaken the following species-specific actions:

• Continue to implement Ontario’s Great Lakes Strategy (2012) including the Canada-Ontario Agreement on Great Lakes Water Quality and Ecosystem Health (COA) to help restore, protect and conserve the Ontario Great Lakes.
• Continue to collaborate with federal partners, such as Fisheries and Oceans Canada, and partners in other jurisdictions to implement fisheries monitoring programs and research, with consideration of Shortnose Cisco and other co-occurring deepwater cisco species. This includes a continued cooperative management through the implementation of the Joint Strategic Plan for the Management of Great Lakes Fisheries and participation on lake committees for the Great Lakes.

Key progress made towards implementing these actions is described in the following sections.

Ontario’s Great Lakes Strategy and the Canada-Ontario Agreement on Great Lakes Water Quality and Ecosystem Health

The Canada-Ontario Agreement on Great Lakes Water Quality and Ecosystem Health (COA) is the principal mechanism through which Ontario and Canada coordinate work to address their respective and shared commitments to restore, protect and conserve the Great Lakes. In 2021, Ontario and Canada signed the ninth COA, effective from June 1, 2021 until May 31, 2026. This agreement marks 50 years of collaborative Great Lakes work between both governments since the first COA was signed in 1971.

COA continues to build on Great Lakes restoration progress. Commitments in the 2021 agreement are advancing new and ongoing actions to address a number of key areas, which include restoring native species and habitats.

Ontario’s Great Lakes Strategy (the Strategy), released in 2012, provides a roadmap for how Ontario will focus action to protect the Great Lakes. The Strategy summarizes environmental conditions of the Great Lakes and Ontario’s actions taken-to-date and identifies priorities for future action. Priorities for future action are described with respect to six Great Lakes goals, which include protecting habitats and species.

Work has been underway to implement the Strategy, through the promotion of work to maintain the quality of deepwater habitat previously utilized by Shortnose Cisco in Lake Huron and Lake Ontario. Key progress and accomplishments through Ontario’s Great Lakes Strategy can be reviewed in the second progress report published in 2023. Examples of accomplishments include:

• completion of the  Great Lakes Nearshore Framework
• completion of projects across the Great Lakes Basin (i.e., the Great Lakes, St. Lawrence River and surrounding waterways) to support research, monitoring and reporting of native fish, aquatic wildlife, food webs and habitats

Joint Strategic Plan for Management of Great Lakes Fisheries

Fisheries management on the Great Lakes includes cross-border collaboration amongst the eight states that border the Great Lakes, the province of Ontario, three U.S. intertribal agencies, and several federal agencies. These groups are signatory to A Joint Plan for Management of Great Lakes Fisheries (the Joint Plan) which is an agreement through which fisheries agencies commit to strategic planning and cooperation to comprehensively manage fisheries to provide continuing, valuable benefits to society, including healthy aquatic ecosystems, scientific knowledge, economic activity and fishing opportunities.

When the original Joint Plan was signed in 1981, the parties identified five major issues of importance: lost fishing opportunities, instability of fish communities, inadequate environmental quality, competition and conflicts among users of fishery resources and access to resources. Climate change was later added as a sixth issue to be addressed through the Joint Plan.

Lake Committees are the primary bodies under which the Joint Plan operates and are comprised of senior officials from state, provincial, and U.S. intertribal agencies. The Ministry of Natural Resources continues to participate in the cooperative management of fisheries within Ontario’s Great Lakes through its role on the Lake Committees, including through fisheries monitoring and research.

Many of the issues identified in the Joint Plan affect Shortnose Cisco, such as climate change, instability of fish communities and the loss of fishing opportunities due to overharvesting of the species when it was commercially fished. With the Joint Plan in place, strategies are in place for Great Lakes fisheries management that support aquatic species and communities and could be beneficial to Shortnose Cisco and other deepwater fish species. These include identifying and addressing potential environmental issues that could affect fish communities, protection from non-native species, identifying important habitats, and data and information sharing.

Through the Joint Plan, the Coregonine Restoration Initiative was developed by the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission to support Shortnose Cisco and other species of coregonines (Whitefishes and Ciscoes). This Initiative was endorsed by the Council of Lake Committees on May 1, 2018 to support diverse fisheries, reestablish lost trophic linkages (feeding connections) and improve ecosystem resiliency. Projects undertaken through this Initiative will support a number of objectives that align with Shortnose Cisco GRS actions, including attempting to advance the identification of all cisco species using morphology (the structure of the species), geography and genetic variation between the species, comparing historical versus current habitat use, and creating tools to allow the use of species-specific DNA sequences to identify coregonine eggs, larvae and juveniles.  

Occurrences and distribution

Tracking the occurrences and distribution of a species is a useful way to monitor and view where a species is found and how it is doing. Ontario’s Natural Heritage Information Centre (NHIC), the government’s central data repository, gathers and manages this type of biodiversity information. NHIC tracks and maps this data as species observations and individual element occurrences, where an element occurrence is an area of land and/or water where a species or plant community is or was present, and has a practical conservation value. For the purposes of this report, ‘population’ is an alternative name for element occurrence.

Two populations of Shortnose Cisco have been documented in Ontario, and are both considered to be extirpated (i.e., no longer live in the wild in Ontario). The extirpated populations were documented in Lake Ontario and Lake Huron. There is also some uncertainty as to whether the species occurred or occurs in Lake Superior (Eshenroder et al. 2016).

Shortnose Cisco was last reported from Lake Ontario in 1964 and Lake Huron in 1985. Substantial sampling for the species has been conducted in Lakes Huron and Ontario since this time in both historical and suitable habitats (COSEWIC 2005). However, despite the use of appropriate sampling methods and yearly search effort to detect the species, no new observations have been reported.

Since the 1960’s, hybridization within deepwater ciscoes was suspected, as collected specimens were not able to fit within any of the known species’ categories, and were sometimes referred to as “hybrid chubs” (Smith 1964). This has led to a more recent study hypothesizing that, in Lakes Huron and Michigan, the cisco complex species have introgressed  ^{footnote 3[3]}   into a “hybrid swarm” that no longer completely resembles any one of the species (Eshenroder et al. 2016). Therefore, the original description of Shortnose Cisco is likely lost in those lakes (Fisheries and Oceans Canada 2012).

Shortnose Cisco is believed to be extirpated in Ontario, and extinct globally, although it does not yet meet the formal criteria for that designation (i.e., elapsed time since last credible record > 50 years) (Fisheries and Oceans Canada 2012). The Ministry’s central repository at the NHIC has received 163 records of the species. These records are based on observations made between 1926 and 1985 and come from a variety of sources. Records submitted have helped to refine where the species has been known to occur and can provide additional information on the species’ habitat and threats.

Encouraging the submission of observations of this species is included in the GRS as a government-led action. Submission of species observations increases our knowledge of where they occur and can play an important role in assessing the viability of species populations.

Everyone is encouraged, or may be required by an authorization or condition of a regulatory exemption, to submit observations of Shortnose Cisco, and any other species at risk observed, to the NHIC for incorporation into the provincial record of observations.

Government-supported stewardship projects

An important government-led action in the GRS for Shortnose Cisco is to support partners to undertake activities to protect and recover the species. To date, no stewardship projects have been funded through the Species at Risk Stewardship Program for this species.

Supporting human activities while ensuring appropriate support for species recovery

Supporting partners through authorizations and their associated conditions is an important government-led action.

One ‘protection or recovery’ (17(2)(b)) permit has been issued for Shortnose Cisco since the species has been protected under the ESA. ‘Protection or recovery’ permits are issued if the purpose of the activity is to assist, and the activity will assist, in the protection or recovery of a species at risk. The permit was issued to survey for deep water Cisco populations in the Western Basin of Lake Ontario.

Progress towards implementing government-supported actions

Government-supported actions are organized under overarching recovery objectives. Progress has been made towards achieving the majority of government-supported recovery objectives and implementing the majority of the associated actions identified in the GRS for Shortnose Cisco.

Objective: Investigate the distribution, abundance and taxonomy of Shortnose Cisco in Ontario:

• Action No. 1 (High Priority) - Further investigate the taxonomic uncertainty surrounding the cisco complex species, including Shortnose Cisco:
  • conducting morphological, biological, ecological, genetic and habitat assessments of cisco complexes to determine taxonomic distinctiveness of individual species, including Shortnose Cisco
  • examining historic cisco species samples from Lake Superior to determine whether Shortnose Cisco occurred in additional Great Lakes
  • analyzing archived specimens to investigate the role of Shortnose Cisco in the food chain (trophic niche) compared to other cisco species
• Action No. 2 - Determine if Shortnose Cisco continues to exist in Ontario:
  • conducting targeted surveys at locations with historic occurrences or other locations with habitat similar to historical collection sites
  • collaborating with ongoing fisheries monitoring programs that occur in the Great Lakes
  • conducting periodic monitoring of commercial fish catches
  • developing educational tools to help with the identification and reporting of any new potential records of the species

Under this objective, initial progress has been made towards implementing all the actions.

Some progress towards Action No. 1 has been made through a number of recent studies. These included research on improving knowledge on the cisco complex species, including habitat occupancy and diets of native cisco species in Lake Superior (Rosinski et. al., 2020), collaborative development by fishery management agencies (including the Ministry of Natural Resources) of a framework for the restoration of cisco diversity in the Great Lakes (Bunnell et al. 2023), and studying the relationship within the Cisco complex by assessing the morphological, ecological and genetic variation (Bernal et al. 2022). This work supported Action No. 1 by improving the understanding of the dynamics of speciation (the formation of new and distinct species through evolution) and taxonomic uncertainty surrounding cisco species.

Action No. 2, sub-actions 1 and 2, has been implemented through annual monitoring surveys in Lake Huron since 2019. Surveys were conducted at sites suitable for cisco species and at appropriate depths, using bottom set gills nets at varying length and mesh sizes to ensure fishes of a range of sizes could be captured. These surveys were part of a community-based investigation into the Saugeen Ojibway Nation-based ecological knowledge and status of the ciscoes of Lake Huron (Duncan et al. 2023). Annual monitoring has continued through the support of Saugeen Ojibway Nation, the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Nawash Unceded First Nation and the Chippewas of Saugeen First Nation Fisheries Assessment Programs.

Objective: Maintain suitable habitat in formerly occupied areas of Lake Huron and Lake Ontario and if populations are found to exist, mitigate threats to the Shortnose Cisco:

• Action No. 3 – Maintain and improve the quality of habitat for deepwater fish in the Great Lakes, including at sites where the Shortnose Cisco has been found historically. This may include implementing actions in Ontario’s Great Lakes Strategy.

Under this objective, some progress has been made towards implementing Action No. 3 through the implementation of the Great Lakes Strategy, which contributes to improving the quality of habitat for deepwater fish in the Great Lakes.

Summary of progress towards meeting the recovery goal

The recovery goal for Shortnose Cisco is “increase knowledge of the species, the cisco complexes and their habitat and if populations are found to exist, mitigate threats to the Shortnose Cisco”. Effort made towards the government-led and government-supported actions has helped to make progress towards this goal. For example, academic partners have made efforts to improve the understanding of cisco complexes in the Great Lakes. In addition, survey efforts have continued in areas where Shortnose Cisco were previously known to exist. The Great Lakes Strategy and collaborative work through lake committees maintains and improves deepwater habitat in the Great Lakes.

Recommendations

As stated in the GRS, this review of progress can be used to help identify whether adjustments are needed to achieve the protection and recovery of the species. Based on progress to-date, the overall direction provided in the GRS for Shortnose Cisco should continue to guide protection and recovery of the species, particularly those actions identified as high priority in the GRS.

Further work is required to fully implement Actions No. 1, 2 and 3 such as: further investigation into the taxonomic uncertainty surrounding the cisco complex species through the examination of historic cisco species samples from Lake Superior to determine whether Shortnose Cisco occurred in additional Great Lakes; analysis of archived specimens to investigate the role of Shortnose Cisco in the food chain compared to other cisco species; determine whether Shortnose Cisco continues to exist in Ontario through conducting targeted surveys at locations with historic occurrences or other locations with habitat similar to historical collection sites; and maintain and improve the quality of habitat for deepwater fish in the Great Lakes, including at sites where the Shortnose Cisco has been found historically. Should Shortnose Cisco be found to exist in Ontario, additional work will be required to address Action No. 4 to support threat mitigation for the species.

Protecting and recovering Shortnose Cisco will continue to be a shared responsibility that will require the involvement of many individuals, organizations and communities. Financial support for the implementation of actions may be available through the Species at Risk Stewardship Program. The government can also advise if any authorizations under the ESA or other legislation may be required to undertake a project. By working together, progress can continue to be made towards protecting and recovering Shortnose Cisco in Ontario.

References

Bernal, M.A., Yule, D.L., Stott, W, Evrard, L, Dowling T.E., Krabbenhoft, T.J. 2022. Concordant patterns of morphological, stable isotope and genetic variation in recent ecological radiation (Salmonidae: Coregonus spp.). Molecular Ecology. 31(17). 2295-4509.

Bunnell, D.b., Ackiss, A.S., Alofs, K.M., Brant, C.O., Bronte, C.R., Claramunt, R.M., Dettmers, J.M, Honsey, A.E., Mandrak, N.E., Muir, A.M, Santucci Jr, V.J., Smith, D.R., Strach, R.M., Sweka, J.A., Weidel, B.C., Mattes, W.P. and Newmand, J.R. 2023. A science and management partnership to restore coregonine diversity to the Laurentian Great Lakes. Environmental Reviews. 31(4).

Duncan, A.T., Lauzon, R, Harpur, C. 2023. An investigation into Saugeen Ojibway Nation-based ecological knowledge on the ciscoes (Coregonus spp.) of Lake Huron. Journal of Great Lakes Research, 49(1), 138-147.

Eshenroder, R.L., P. Vecsei, N.E. Mandrak, D.L. Yule, O.T. Gorman, T.C. Pratt, D.B. Bunnell, and A.M. Muir. 2016. Monograph on the Ciscoes (Coregonus, subgenus Leucicthys) of the Laurentian Great Lakes and Lake Nipigon. Great Lakes Fishery Commission Miscellaneous Publication 2016-01.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada. 2012. Recovery Strategy for the Shortnose Cisco (Coregonus reighardi) in Canada. Species at Risk Act (SARA) Recovery Strategy Series. Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Ottawa. vi + 16 pp.

Parker, B. 1988. COSEWIC status report on the shortnose cisco Coregonus reighardi in Canada. Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada. Ottawa. 17 pp.

Rosinski, C. L, Vinson, M. R. Yule, D. L. 2020. Niche partitioning among Native Ciscoes and Nonnative Rainbow Smelt in Lake Superior. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society. 149(2), 184-203.

Smith, S.H. 1964. Status of the deepwater cisco population of Lake Michigan. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society. 93: 155-163.