In a river as long as the Ottawa River, it should be no surprise that there is an impressive diversity of fish species. Water, land, and shore conditions can be very different from one area to another, which makes for a wide variety of habitats for different species to thrive in. In some cases, those changes in habitat from one reach to the next are natural, such as narrow, shallow rapids compared to wider, deeper, slow moving sections and bays, or small streams where temperature can vary dramatically with the seasons. However, habitats can also be changed by pollution, climate change, shoreline denaturalization, invasive species, and fragmentation (such as dams or other human-made barriers). These new or altered habitats can impact native fish populations by restricting access to habitat or changing water quality and flow or by reducing access to or availability of food all of which contribute to the declines that some native fish populations may be facing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ottawariverkeeper.ca\/discovery-portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/answer\/322"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ottawariverkeeper.ca\/discovery-portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/answer"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ottawariverkeeper.ca\/discovery-portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/answer"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ottawariverkeeper.ca\/discovery-portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}