The Aurora Trout is found in two lakes in northern Ontario, Canada. While they have been introduced to some 12 other lakes, their populations are not stage enough to sustain their population. What is known about the Aurora Trout is that they prefer cold, crisp water much like the Brown Trout prefers, which the Aurora Trout is a sub species.

What is known about the Aurora Trout is that they prefer cold, crisp water much like the Brown Trout prefers, which the Aurora Trout is a sub species.

Water temperatures above 68°F/20°C will see the Aurora Trout head to deeper water. If the water temperature at depth is warm for sustained periods of time, the Aurora Trout will likely expire.

The Aurora Trout is also susceptible to acidity and high turbidity levels. Due to the high levels of acid rain in the area during the 1960s, the Aurora Trout died out from its natural habit. If it was not for the provincial government’s rescue plan of nine fish, the Aurora Trout would be extinct.

Despite their limited distribution and that they were almost extinct, it took until 2000 before they were classified as an endangered species by Environment Canada. Efforts to save the Aurora Trout from extinction has done little to prevent the risk from extinction due to a local disaster.

Rocky Lake Bottoms

The Aurora Trout has a preference for lakes with a rocky or gravel bottom and requires this habitat for spawning. Like their relative, the Brook Trout, the Aurora Trout does not like muddy lake bottoms or highly turbid waters. This is a common characteristic for trout, charr and salmon species.

Being big, beautiful, fast growing, short lived, aggressive, ever hungry, easy to catch and easy to please are hardly conditions conducive to fish population explosions.

Factor in where the auroras live, downwind of the giant International Nickel and Falconbridge Nickel smelters in Sudbury, Ontario and it spells double trouble for the trout.

Norther Ontario Mining Environmental Factors

While mining provides a significant part of the Canadian economy, it has contributed to the acidification of many Canadian lakes and rivers in the middle to late part of the twentieth century. As the resource industry accounts for some 25 percent of the economy.

However, beginning with the 1980s, the Canadian government introduced regulations have led to much better scrubbers that remove many of the harmful chemicals from the environment that lead to the acidification of lakes and rivers in the 1950s and 1960s.

However, many northern states are complaining that the pollutants from Canadian joke stacks are polluting their waterways.