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Abstract:
Substantial efforts have been made in the USA and Canada to rehabilitate their freshwater ecosystems. In this thesis, I illustrate how biotelemetry can be used to complement traditional sampling methods to inform and assess fish habitat and population rehabilitation. I highlight several case studies within the Laurentian Great Lakes where biotelemetry is being used at various planning and monitoring stages and discuss how biotelemetry was used to monitor and inform the fish population rehabilitation efforts in Hamilton Harbour, Lake Ontario. Walleye are a cool water fish species, previously extirpated from the Harbour in the early 1900s and, in an effort to balance to fish community, were reintroduced by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry. Biotelemetry revealed that walleye spent the majority of the study in Hamilton Harbour, including the spring spawning season, and that their home range extent within the harbour varied on a seasonal basis.