The Chum started returning to Basil Creek a week ago. To an inexperienced eye, the water levels seemed too low on the 16th, but dozens of large salmon were progressing upstream beyond the culvert. Christine Robinson said that she and her husband Cec had seen them the previous day. That was when we agreed to do this interview.
“We know it’s the big year in their four year cycle. Chum primarily have a four year cycle, a few of them three, and a few of them five, but the majority have a four year cycle. In 2020, four years ago, approximately 1100 fish came back to Basil Creek. Four years prior to that, in 2016, there were about 1100. We’re not alone in this. All the creeks are in a similar cycle. Basil Creek, of course, is the main stream on Cortes for salmon return. So we’re optimistic that it should be a big year this time,” explained Cec Robinson, one of the principal Streamkeepers on Cortes Island.
“Just a few weeks ago, Fisheries was anticipating a very poor return, based on their test fishery. They couldn’t find them and they thought that they weren’t there, but the Chum pulled a lovely surprise. They were somewhere, and here they come. Lots of Chum have been spotted.”
“They are so full of energy when they first come in, they’re all excited. They’re above average size this year, too. Beautiful, strong, big fish, nicest we’ve ever seen. That’s also encouraging because the larger fish have more eggs and, also, larger fish eggs. It bodes well for the survivability of their offspring.”
Cortes Currents: I would have thought there wasn’t even enough water for them to get up the creek.
Cec Robinson: “It looked like that to me too, it was borderline. They were really pushing it to be in there at that point.”
“Dave Ewert, a semi-retired DFO employee from the hatchery in Campbell River, assisted us in doing a small egg take just this past Thursday. It was very spur of the moment: the fish were there and that low water made it very easy for us. We were able to select the appropriate fish and get a hold of them effortlessly because the poor things had no place to go and no place to run to.”
“We took a few, because of course you only take a small percentage of what comes in. It remains to be seen whether we’ll take any more. The idea, of course, is just to multiply your odds. Shuffle the deck and spread it around, and if one thing goes wrong, then something else hopefully goes right and we can borrow a few of those eggs to put into Whaletown Creek.”
Cortes Currents: How many eggs did you collect?
Cec Robinson: “We took ten females and, correspondingly, ten males. You can plan on 2000 eggs per fish. These are extra big, healthy fish and, they’re pretty sure that they would’ve had more than 2000 eggs each, but conservatively that would be 20,000 eggs.”
“Ideally we hope for something closer to 60,000, to share primarily in Basil Creek, but to share 20,000 or 30,000 of them in Whaletown. Of course, they don’t all come from our own fish. Ideally that would be accomplished with Cortes eggs in Cortes creeks but we have been getting quite a few from the Tla’amin Hatchery over in Lund. They’ve been super generous and working with us through Klahoose. The Tla’amin supply us with eggs which were determined to be of the same DNA as our own stock. That’s critically important to protect the individuality of the animal strand.”
“The goal is to not have to even do an egg take and just to have a wild salmon return that looks after itself the way it used to before we meddled in it. Meanwhile, we’re just trying to undo some of the damage that we’ve done in the past.”
Cortes Currents: Have any Chum returned to Whaletown or any of the other creeks?
Cec Robinson: “We’re waiting for reports on the other creeks, except for Whaletown. I looked this morning and could see three fish just from the road. We’ve got limited access to the lower stretches of that creek. The water is fairly high and fairly dark with tannin. It’s not raging with mud and silt or anything, but it’s high, dark coloured and on a day like this the light’s poor. So the fact that I could even see three was extremely encouraging. That was in three different spots, so I’m pretty darn sure that they would have at least paired up, and probably a few others, so I’m guessing that was probably 10 or 12 fish, but I can only see three.”
“There’s several hundred meters of creek below the road that flows through private property I don’t have access to, so I’m hopeful that there’s a bunch of fish down there. I just can’t see them. If there’s enough fish, they’ll crowd themselves further and further upstream and they should be more easily seen.”
“There’s new landowners at the bottom of Hanson Creek. It flows into the Gorge Harbor. We’ve been attempting to make contact with them to get permission to politely trespass a little bit there., but we haven’t got that yet.”
Cortes Currents: There were very dismal returns during the droughts of 2022 and 2023. What does that mean for future runs?
Cec Robinson: “Well, those years were so weak. You can pretty well anticipate that four years on from each of those, it’ll be weak as well. Hopefully they can recover. They do demonstrate an amazing ability to regroup and recover if they just have half a chance. But a lot of healthy little fish were released in the four years prior to those years, tens of thousands of them and they didn’t come back. Clearly they encountered conditions out there that just didn’t allow them to survive.”
“I would like to clarify a couple things about those last two years. We all know the drought conditions were terrible and the level of the creek was completely inadequate. So no matter how many fish had to come back, they simply couldn’t get up the creek, but what I think a lot of people didn’t really understand is they didn’t come back.”
“There were no significant numbers of fish trying to come up. Otherwise They would have been highly visible at the mouth, milling around in the intertidal area there on a high tide, desperately looking and poking and waiting and trying to come in. There would have been hordes of seagulls and eagles and sea lions and all sorts of chaos happening.”
“There are two separate issues. One is the drought and the level of the creek, which is hugely concerning. The other is, why didn’t they come back?”
Cortes Currents: Is there any chance that the runs of 2022 and 2023 moved on to other creeks where maybe there was more water?
Cec Robinson: “Well, there is a possibility they strayed to other creeks. Chum are actually well known to stray like that. Some people refer to them as vagabonds, and they do that for reasons of their own, but they don’t usually just abandon their natal stream and go somewhere else. Generally, I think it happens when there’s a big run, like this year. If the creek is getting chock-a-block with fish, a bunch of them just say, ‘the heck with this, let’s go somewhere else.’”
“The other thing is that, if one creek is that low due to drought, it’s unlikely that you’re going to have another creek that’s not low. They’re all going to be suffering from the same thing, other than if you had a nearby river that can be low, but still possible just by virtue of its larger size. We don’t have anything nearby like that.”
“It’s great right now, there’s lots of water and yet not too much. There’s a point where it just rages muddy brown and washes all the eggs out. Hopefully we avoid that this year. Right now it’s perfect.”
Cortes Currents: What do you think of the future of the Chum salmon runs, especially with climate change getting worse? Is that a factor?
Cec Robinson: “Well, I’m darn sure it’s a factor. It’s going to be very difficult for them in our corner of the world if serious drought conditions become routine, which they almost have – but not quite. They’re really up against it if that happens. They’ve simply got to be able to get into the creek.”
“That’s true for all of the species of salmon here, but it’s most true for the small creeks. The larger rivers and whatnot can tolerate the drought a little bit better.”
“The good news for Chums is that they don’t stay in the creek. The little guys hatch in the spring. They only hang around for two weeks and they head to sea. so they can actually spawn and sustain themselves in creeks that are just strictly ephemeral, seasonal trickles, because they’re gone out in the ocean. They don’t know that the creek went dry. It doesn’t bother them at all. That’s true for Chums and for Pinks. The future for Coho is far more precarious in that respect, because they stay in the stream for at least a year, and sometimes for two. So, they need a stream that stays cold and has sufficient water in it.”
“So I think that in our area, the future belongs to Chum and Pinks. Sockeye and Springs tend to favor larger bodies of water, so that’s a different subject.”
“As far as climate change goes, in the huge overall picture there’s already indications that the Chum are showing up way north. They’re going into Arctic systems that have never seen Chum before. As a species, they’re probably going to be able to look after themselves that way. That might not look that great from where we sit, but they’re working on it.”
Cortes Currents: Do you have any final thoughts?
Cec Robinson: “I just encourage people to swing by Basil Creek if they get a chance. Look at the fish just below the road and on the store side of the creek. There’s a little trail going down there and that way you’re not intruding on private property. Do it quietly, and preferably leave the dogs at home. Just enjoy seeing them.”
(Christine Robinson would later write* that over 800 Chum were counted in one day, Oct 21, and ‘small numbers have begun to show up in Hansen, Whaletown and James Creeks. Even low numbers are welcome after having no record of chum in these 3 creeks in 2023.’ )
Links of Interest
- Chum Salmon in Basil Creek
- Chum in Whaletown Creek
- Chum Salmon in Hansons Creek
- Harvesting Fish Eggs
- Vagabond Salmon
- The Tla’amin Hatchery
- The Klahoose Hatchery
Undesignated photos taken by Roy L Hales on October 16. Photos of harvesting salmon eggs were taken by Mike Manson the following day.
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