More than 20 people gathered at the Klahoose hatchery in Squirrel Cove to watch around 5,000 Chum fry be released back into Basil Creek on Wednesday, April 20, 2022. Six of them were women and girls from the Klahoose village, who came to sing a prayer song. Seven were homeschool students, enrolled in the Partners in Education (PIE) program, who came with their mothers. There were also a handful of Cortes Island streamkeepers, three Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) personal and two reporters.
The salmon fry were survivors.
Klahoose Fisheries Officer Byron Harry explained that close to 20,000 chum eggs had been inside ‘in-stream incubation boxes,’ in Basil Creek, before a combination of heavy snowfalls and winter rains caused the creek to rise.
The water was too high for the Cortes Island streamkeepers to approach, the first time they came to check the boxes.
“By the time that stream came down enough to get at them, they were in fact mostly smothered with gravel and silt that had washed down the creek in I’d say, unprecedented amounts, really,” said streamkeeper Cec Robinson. “Anyway, there was a rescue effort and, I guess it was closer to 5,000, perhaps, that we managed to salvage from the silted in boxes in the creek.”
The fry have been at the Klahoose hatchery for the past four weeks.
They were about to be returned to the creek.
As everyone waited for DFO, a number of children and adults gathered to watch the fry school together in the hatchery trough.
“They’re used to darkness because we have a cover on the troughs all the time. They’re just trying to hide, and get away from any movement that’s happening about the water,” explained Harry.
The fry were scooped up in nets and a relay of volunteers carried bucket fulls to where a fish transport tank was waiting.
A DFO truck had hauled the tank across, from the Quinsam Hatchery in Campbell River.
When the tank was full, everyone got in their cars and drove down to Basil Creek. Most of the vehicles parked close to the Squirrel Cove General Store, but the hatchery vehicle parked over the culvert at Basil Creek.
Two of the DFO proceeded to scoop the fry into waiting buckets, which volunteers transported to the creek.
Cortes Currents asked Harry, ‘how long do you think the fry will stay in the creek?’
“It’s hard to say. I mean, these are chum eggs, so I would say anywhere from the next few months, maybe four months, before they start going down creek into the ocean,” he answered.
These chum salmon have been given a head start at the hatchery, but they will be in the ocean for four years before the survivors return to Basil Creek.
Some of them may perish in pockets of warmer ocean waters, which some scientists believe are responsible for the catastrophic returns to four of Cortes Island’s five creeks last year. Others will fall prey to disease, larger fish, marine animals or fishermen.
Do you have an idea how many will survive?
Harry responded, “No, I’m not too familiar of what percentage goes out into the ocean and what comes back. This is my first year working for Klahoose. I’ve been here a lot because my dad used to work here, but I never actually got any numbers. After talking to some of the more experienced people here, I’ll have a better idea.”
How important is this project for the chum?
“We’re trying to keep the runs going every year and it’s been dropping quite a bit lately, so I think it’s important to keep doing this and try to get the survival rate higher,” said Harry.
Top image credit: Chum fry schooling in a trough at the Klahoose hatchery – Photo by Roy L Hales
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