Around 8,000 Chum Salmon eggs were harvested in Basil Creek, Cortes Island, on Friday, October 29th.
Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), the Friends of Cortes Island Streamkeepers (FOCI) and the Klahoose Hatchery were hoping to collect up to 40,000 eggs.
DFO Community Advisor Stacey Larsen said that if enough Chum return, there may be another chance to collect eggs this week.
“The opportunity to use genetically local stock and get Chum salmon back into that creek is what this is all about,” explained Cortes Island Streamkeeper Cec Robinson. “All of the salmon returns that we get on Cortes are just a shadow of what they once were. Including here at Basil Creek, which is the strongest run we get by far, but it still could be much greater.”
He said the natural runs in Cortes Island’s other creeks were ‘almost gone.’
There was no time for interviews after the work began but, as the team was assembling, Robinson explained who they were:
- Byron Harry, the new Klahoose Fisheries Officer, “his dad had that job in the past and was well respected and appreciated for the work that he did.”
- Dave Ewart, former manager of the Quinsam River hatchery in Campbell River, who “keeps trying to retire from DFO but they won’t let him go.” Robinson added that Ewart owns property on Cortes and is a real mentor for the streamkeepers.
- Five volunteer streamkeepers.
Larsen, DFO’s Community Advisor from the area stretching from Oyster Bay north to Sayward and including Cortes and the other Discovery Islands, joined us just after this.
Ewart, Harry and the Streamkeepers put nets across the stream, to stop the salmon from escaping. Then they went after the trapped fish with scoop nets. Ewart was especially adept at differentiating females that are full of eggs from those that are already spawned out. Most of the salmon seemed to be released, but at the end of the operation four dead females and five males were laid out on the bank.
They were milked for eggs and sperm, respectively, and their bodies returned to the stream.
Cruel as this may seem, the salmon had returned to Basil Creek to spawn and die. Larsen explained that, depending how long they have been in the creek, the remainder of their natural lives would have been measured in days or weeks.
Robinson said that as a result of the human intervention, 80% to 90% of the eggs being harvested would survive – instead of 5% to 10%.
“We can multiply what nature has given us and put it back in the creeks where it is needed,” he said.
Larsen measured the dead Chum, and collected samples of their DNA to send to the DFO’s Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo.
Serene Watson, and her sons Ben (11) and Bodhe (7), were among the spectators that gathered on the bank.
Watson is homeschooling her sons and explained, “Almost daily, we’re exploring the forests and beaches of Cortes. Depending on the season, we’ll see what we can find. Now it’s fall: so we have mushrooms, and salmon, and newts crossing on Bartholomew Road.”
Her son Ben added, “We just came to check out the salmon coming in the creek to spawn. Then there were these fish catchers, catching all the fish. Twenty of each (male and female), they are trying to do. Then they are bringing them to the fish hatchery to collect the eggs.”
The Watsons accompanied the harvesters back to the Klahoose hatchery, where the male sperm and female eggs were mixed together.
They will remain in the hatchery for up two six weeks.
“At that point they’ll go into incubation boxes, which FOCI Streamkeepers have, probably one box in Basil Creek and one box in Whaletown Creek,” said Robinson.
Top photo credit: Chris Napper, Byron Harry and Cec Robinson arriving at Basil Creek – Photo by Roy L Hales
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