CKTZ News, through an LJI grant from Canada-info.ca

Cortes Island Streamkeepers released nearly 20,000 chum salmon fry into Whaletown Creek on Cortes Island on Saturday, March 19, in an ongoing effort to bring back the natural fish population for a healthy ecosystem.

Fry are fish in the juvenile stage when they are able to feed themselves, after depleting the nutrients in the yolk sac attached to their bodies at the time of hatching. The fish had grown within a specialized metal case placed directly into the stream in December containing eggs from the Tla’amin Nation hatchery. The newly released fry will gradually make their way from the creek to the estuary, then the bay and finally into the open ocean.

Cec Robinson, one of the volunteer Streamkeepers, said the fish will typically return in four years to spawn in the same stream using their built-in geolocation abilities.

“The survival is not great by our standards,” he said, “perhaps 1 per cent, but that’s still a few hundred fish,” and significantly more than the approximately 30 individuals the volunteers have seen return in recent autumns.

Special guest Joey Ojeck from Nipissing Territory spoke traditional Anishinaabe prayers and sang an Anishinaabe Water Song before the fish were released into the wild.

Similar releases into other streams on the island will happen throughout the spring.

Top photo credit: Cortes Streamkeepers Cec and Christine Robinson show children salmon fry they are about to release. Photo by Anastasia Avvakumova.