Equipped with floater coats and a dead man’s switch for safety, Jonny Waugh surveyed Ontario’s lakes and rivers as part of a growing environmental sector.Nick Kozac
One night in October, Jonny Waugh’s boat pitched against six-foot waves as rain lashed the deck. He and his colleagues fought the choppy water to make it back to harbour after monitoring fish active at night.
For Mr. Waugh, this was a typical day on the job: traversing Ontario’s rivers and lakes, often in conditions and areas most people never see, to identify fish populations.
After graduating from the University of Toronto in 2022 with a bachelor of science, Mr. Waugh spent time working at a nursery for native southern Ontario trees. He found it monotonous – “eight hours of the same exact thing, every day,” he says.
In 2024, presented with the opportunity to work for an Ontario conservation authority, he jumped at it.
The role was in aquatic monitoring – venturing out into the province’s lakes, streams and river mouths for the purpose of surveying fish populations. This type of consistent data collection allows conservation authorities to understand which ecosystems are healthy, track those in recovery and identify which are in need of intervention.
Equipped with heavy-duty floater coats, steel-toe boots and shoulder-length gloves, the small team electrofishes. The boat sends a three-metre-range electric pulse through anodes in the water to temporarily stun the fish.
Then, they grab fish as the fish rise to the surface so they can weigh, measure and identify each species before releasing the fish. (For invasive species, such as a football-sized goldfish Mr. Waugh once found, there is a protocol to dispose of them.)
The work is physical. “Carp and salmon in Ontario can be around 30-35 pounds – they’re heavy and they’re all muscle,” he says.
The risk of electrocution is managed by a dead man’s switch. Found on the floor of the boat, the mechanism kills the power if someone’s foot comes off it, preventing them from getting electrocuted if they fall overboard. With three to five people on the boat, everyone has a switch.
Electricity isn’t the only danger, with unpredictable inclement weather posing the most significant risk. The worst of it came one Halloween night for Mr. Waugh and his colleagues. They were up the mouth of a river to monitor fish that were active at night. When they came out into a bay, the weather had taken a dire turn. Many kilometres offshore, they had to return to the harbour in pitch darkness against choppy waves crashing onto their boat. Mr. Waugh was grateful the boat had a small cabin – if he was in an open-topped boat, the risk of water crashing the deck and flooding the motor would increase significantly.
“There are a lot of safety measures on the boat,” he says. “But you can’t control the environment.”
While frightening, this experience wasn’t commonplace.
“Most of the days on that job I didn’t think I was going to die,” Mr. Waugh says with a laugh. “I was just sweaty and smelled like fish.”
While challenging, Mr. Waugh’s line of work also offers a unique vantage point of Ontario’s diverse wildlife and waterfront – particularly in areas that are inaccessible to the average visitor. These sites are critical for the province’s ecological wellbeing, along with mitigating the effects of climate change.
Andrés Jiménez Monge, the executive director of Ontario Nature, views workers such as Mr. Waugh as essential to the province’s ecological health – and difficult to replace.
“AI doesn’t electrofish,” he says. “Environmental jobs are growing at three times the rate of the general Canadian economy. It’s a sector that remains high-growth, but it’s also a safe harbour for talent in many ways.”
Beyond the most visible roles – park rangers, biologists, aquatic monitors – there are a range of workers who regularly find environmental risks before they spread: ensuring pipelines don’t leak, that tap water stays drinkable. For this, Mr. Monge refers to environmental workers as “the silent safeguards of our daily lives.”
For those working out in the elements, the roles can also entail a level of physical exhaustion along with mental fatigue from ongoing risks.
“You eventually do feel maxed out on the cortisol and adrenaline,” Mr. Waugh says.
In his case, journalling became a way to lighten the job’s stressors. He also finds an outlet in outdoor sports such as rock climbing, ice climbing and hiking. Mr. Waugh notes the appeal of “Type 2 fun” – experiences that feel challenging, difficult or downright unpleasant in the moment, followed by a later sense of resilience and fulfillment.
“There’s a clarity of mind you get when you’re confronted with real bodily risk or intense situations,” he says. “You’re present in the moment because you’re afraid of the danger, but there’s an appeal to the proximity to danger. It requires your full attention.”
Mr. Waugh credits these adrenaline-chasing activities for his ability to maintain a cool head in stressful situations.
“You don’t have the luxury of being able to panic [on the job] – if you do, you might fall or hurt yourself. Panicking isn’t going to make the rain go away or the waves smaller.”