The threat of deteriorating habitats and a loss of biodiversity make this reference work on the freshwater fishes of British Columbia more necessary than ever before. Eighty-one comprehensive species accounts aid accurate identification and consist of an illustration, the scientific and common names of the fish, its distinguishing characteristics, taxonomic comments, geographic distribution, a life-history summary, a habitat-use summary, and conservation comments. The book is a critical resource for biologists, naturalists, management and conservation officers, anglers, and members of the public who are concerned about our natural heritage.

The threat of deteriorating habitats and a loss of biodiversity make this reference work on the freshwater fishes of British Columbia more necessary than ever before. Eighty-one comprehensive species accounts aid accurate identification and consist of an illustration, the scientific and common names of the fish, its distinguishing characteristics, taxonomic comments, geographic distribution, a life-history summary, a habitat-use summary, and conservation comments. The book is a critical resource for biologists, naturalists, management and conservation officers, anglers, and members of the public who are concerned about our natural heritage.

Sturgeon, salmonids, minnows, sticklebacks, sculpins.

With growing public concern about biodiversity and conservation, inaccurate identification of wild species is becoming more important. This set of keys to British Columbia fishes is an attempt to provide rapid and dependable field identifications of freshwater fish by those who are not taxonomists, unlike traditional keys which are designed for use with preserved specimens and are filled with obscure jargon and complicated directions. Information is included in this guide that is rarely incorporated in traditional keys, such as where a fish was caught (geographic locality and site-specific habitat) and what it looks like when alive. To simplify the keys, the guide divides the province into eight zoogeographic regions, generally corresponding to major drainage basins. The appendix contains a conventional key for use on preserved material and includes all the species known to occur in British Columbia.

The Fisheries Research Board is proud to present this volume, a tribute to the cooperation between the government agency that initiated and supported the work and the research organization that carried it out. It is the hope of the authors that this text will perform a useful service by highlighting the lack of information on many aspects of the biology of many Canadian fish species. Particularly glaring is our ignorance of the basic life history of many common species.