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ABOUT THIS PAINTING
I focused my painting on the salmon spawning season. The ancient white sturgeon are drawn to the salmon redds….gravel nests where salmon lay their eggs, a favorite food source. They will also eat the salmon carcasses after they have spawned and died. I witnessed them stirring up the bottom which created a cloud as they moved through it, which I learnt is natural foraging behaviour. Of, course...they are bottom feeders. This annual event during spawning season is not merely a feeding frenzy but a sophisticated ecological dance that has unfolded for eons. My intent was to capture and preserve this story for generations.
To be honest I never imagined every painting one of these until I was asked by the Fraser River Sturgeon Conservation Society, an organization I’ve long supported through art donations. I was invited to go tagging to familiarize myself with this ancient creature and quickly learned each one was different, with various colors and almost galactic designs…they are truly beautiful. I began further studies including a trip to a fish hatchery with an underwater camera, the Vancouver aquarium to watch how they move, numerous reports on their habitat, diet, adaptable colouring, studied their bone structure and the shape of their scutes ….all so fascinating. The white sturgeon are North America’s largest and longest-lived freshwater fish capable of reaching 20ft., weighing over 1500 lbs, and living for over 100 years. They have remained unchanged for 175 million years making them literally…a living dinasour. They are listed as endangered in Canada and protected under the federal Fisheries Act.