A Quantitative Evaluation of Fish Passage Options for the Dam on the Black Sturgeon River

Humans domesticate nature to suit their needs. Such alterations can create trade-offs between human needs and ecosystem services. Quantification of these trade-offs is needed to domesticate nature more wisely. My thesis quantifies tradeoffs between invasive species control and the rehabilitation and protection of native fishes associated with the preservation and relocation of the dam on the Black Sturgeon River on the north shore of Lake Superior. I evaluated the trade-offs in terms of five performance measures: abundances of walleye, sea lamprey, lake sturgeon, and northern brook lamprey, and financial cost. I found that the management of the Black Sturgeon River would depend on value judgments because of the high complexity and uncertainty of the system. The analysis of the Black Sturgeon River could be an example of how to evaluate the trade-offs between invasive species control and native fish passage and be used for similar systems which share this trade-off.