Hotel Lake Stewards

working with:

UBC in a Study of Freshwater Jellyfish Impacts in BC

and

BCLakes Stewardship Society and Ministry of Environment

towards a level 1 and level 3, Hotel Lake Report

Hotel Lake Stewards 2026 logo_edited.jpg

The Hotel Lake Stewards logo seen above includes the words “Citizen Scientists”, which is now used all over planet Earth as more and more citizens step up to help doing groundwork to help advance science initiatives.

Here is how 6 local "citizen scientist" volunteers came together to serve at Hotel Lake.

Jellyfish sightings in local B.C. lakes date back to about 2001. In 2020 Harbour Spiel published an article about the discovery and study of hydromedusae, freshwater jellyfish in BC. A subsequent article by Stephan Labbé appeared in the June 14, 2022 edition of Coast Reporter and since then many other reports have been published..

In 2022 we took great interest in these articles because we were frequently seeing tiny jellyfish in Hotel Lake during the summer months. This motivated us to contact Dr. Florian Lüskow at UBC for information so that we could publish a webpage about Jellyfish on this website. Over time, Dr Lüskow, in addition to helping us learn about jellyfish, outlined a research study of freshwater jellyfish that would require the help of local volunteers and happily six local Hotel Lake volunteers came forward to assist in the summer of 2023.

In 2023, the project began with Dr. Lüskow and Professor Pakhomov visiting Hotel Lake to provide training to the 6 volunteers. The 2023 project involved 17 sorties out onto the lake to collect data and samples; these sorties dubbed “Stations” took place every 4 days. At each station volunteers conducted a number of measurements and sample-taking and associated processing for later analysis. The volunteers did very well performing these duties and concurrently became aware of British Columbia Lake Stewardship Society’s (BCLSS) Level 1 lake study program and took the necessary training to start that work also.

In 2024 the 6 local volunteers, now dubbed, "Hotel Lake Stewards” were their full-year schedule of collecting stations under the BCLSS level 1 lake study which involved the collection of data from Hotel Lake such as water turbidity and water temperature data and also other meteorological data. Hotel Lake Stewards learned that BCLSS would be able to provide another important lake monitoring tool called a YSI. This instrument has both water temperature and dissolved oxygen (DO) measuring capability at all levels in Hotel Lake.

To understand how important this news is, here is a quote from BCLSS: "Oxygen is essential to nearly all organisms on earth including life in lakes. Given that fish breathe oxygen dissolved in water (referred to as dissolved oxygen or DO), the sport fisheries and healthy aquatic ecosystems that many of us enjoy, are absolutely dependent on water having an adequate supply of DO. Its concentration also has a great effect on the biochemical nature of a lake; long-term changes in oxygen concentration, especially at the lake bottom, can markedly affect nutrient availability and alter the productivity of the entire lake. As such, oxygen is one of the most important resources influencing lake management and its measurement should be part of any lake sampling program."

In 2024, the UBC jellyfish project continued to evolve with new protocols and it proved to be a very active year as a great many jellyfish samples and other data were collected.

In 2025, while continuing work with UBC, the stewards were advanced to a level 3 study of Hotel Lake which involves work under the direction of Min Env. The Hotel Lake Steward developed operaional protocols which permitted them to operate dual-purpose stations that accomplished work for both UBC and Min Env simultaneously.

By 2026, with the continuation of work for UBC and the level-3 lake study for Min Env, additional volunteers joined and the Hotel Lake Stewards were operating year-round.

Six Volunteers

The last station in 2023, Station 17, was done on September 7. The next day, Dr. Lüskow, Professor Pakhomov and other scientists from UBC visited Hotel Lake to wrap-up and to administrate final testing. In addition, Dr. Lüskow agreed to speak publically on the subject; his presentation entitled: “Freshwater Jellyfish in British Columbia & Beyond – knowledge gaps and current progress” took place on September 9, 2023 at Sarah Wray Hall in Garden Bay at 2:00pm.

The following will give our readers an idea of some of the Station work and protocols: The preparation of water for use in pressurized or squeeze bottles, during sampling, can be done on station or prior to departure as the photo (below) shows. Water is obtained from the lake and filtered into the two bottles through the 125um sieve.

Protocols and Procedures

Bottom depth determination with a slack line from Secchi disk. (record depth in notebook)

Secchi depth measurement.(record depth in notebook)

Temperature profile with YSI sonde

Take a measurement during descent every 0.5 m
(ALLOW TIME FOR TEMP DISPLAY TO STABILIZE AT EACH LEVEL).
CONTINUE until half a metre above the lake floor
Note depths and temperature in notebook

Water properties

Rinse bucket with surface water, then take a water sample from the lake.

Chlorophyll
- Rinse syringe twice with lake water from bucket.
- Filter 60 mL of lake water through top-syringe filter for chlorophyll twice (total: 120 mL)
- Wrap the top-syringe filter in tin foil
- Move the filter into a pre-labelled test tube (wrap test tube with tin foil) store in freezer (after returning to land)

Water Properties, Nutrients

Rinse test tube three times with water from the syringe
Filter water from syringe into test tube and fill to 13 mL
Repeat this process for a second test tube
Label the test tubes
After returning to land, ensure test tubes are labeled and then store in freezer.

Zooplankton sampling (net tow)

Lower the plankton net vertically to 1 m above the lake floor
Bring the plankton net up to the surface at 0.5 m/s (for the 10 m distance, this should take 20 s)
Use pressurized spray-bottle-wand, working down the exterior of the net, to wash plankton down into the net end.
Unscrew net end, wash content onto the 125 um sieve with squirt bottle
Use squirt bottle and lab spoon to transfer net content into pre-labelled sample jar (230 mL)
Repeat the net tow procedure and add contents to the same sample jar.
Add filtered water to approximately 90 mL (about half way up the jar)
WEAR NITRIL GLOVES, Add test tube with formalin (10 mL).
Seal sample jar, then invert sample jar gently several times and then seal with parafilm

ETHANOL TEST IS REQUIRED ON ODD-NUMBERED STATIONS:

Repeat net tow procedure once only.
Place contents in a second sample jar ( pre-labelled incl: "Ethanol') and fill the jar with ethanol (95%) up to the "shoulder", i.e. the point at which the jar narrows down at the top; seal sample jar.
Invert plankton sample jar gently several times and then seal with parafilm

Photos below show (in sequence): On all stations, the addition of formalin from the small tube into the specimin jar. Next, on odd-numbered stations, the addition of ethanol from the large jug into a second jar. Next, the subsequent sealing of jars with parafilm. Note: all specimin jars and tubes should be marked with STATION NO. and DATE.

In 2024 the UBC project was continued by Hotel Lake Stewards. The UBC stations were scheduled every 5 days and included several new tasks and changes to protocol, particularly with the processing and storage of samples for later analysis. In August a new horizontal catchment basket was introduced that permitted horizontal sweeps to determine the density of jellyfish in any particular area.

The basket has an opening 12 inches by 12 inches. It is dragged or pushed through the water using a powered dingy or float and the distance (more correctly, the volume of water that passes through the basket) is recorded by a propeller driven “odometer” inside the basket. At the end of each run, the number of jellyfish are counted and the volume of water can be determined using the odometer readings. Traversing large concentrations of jellyfish with this system produces interesting perspectives about jellyfish population-density. This was indeed a year where the jellyfish blooms were huge.

In 2005 and 2006 Hotel Lake Stewards continued to work biweekly stations through the Spring, Summer and early Fall, and monthly through the winter months.

Looking down into the “basket” ..... visible at the bottom are many jellyfish waiting to be counted.