Stream Keepers May 2014-05-03

Stream keeping in the rain out in the forest is a real pleasure at this time of year.

 Everywhere life is bursting forth from emergent fry to nesting birds, trees beginning to flush with spring growth. Salmonberry sprouts emerging from the forest floor makes a nice snack when walking along the streams, just realized that’s the perfect snack in the bush for a stream keeper.

We have our smolts counting fence in place with around 20 fish so far moving through all around 115mm to 135mm with a couple of nice trout around 200mm.

Giant Water Bugs find there way into the box on occasion, around 35mm they look formidable with the ability to suck the meat out of a fish leaving only skin and bone. Handle with care and off they go back into the stream.

Some Hog Weed eradication is another project we tackle at this time of year and after several years we seem to be holding it at bay isolated to one spot.

Removal is by hand with extreme care not to get the sap onto your skin, as it is toxic.

Clearing Broom is safer though more daunting as it seems to grow as fast as you cut it. Broom now can be found way up in the bush as well as around suburbia, though a nice looking flower it does out compete native plants.

Down in the estuary life also is bursting forth with Geese nesting, Red Wig Blackbirds, Ducks of all shapes and sizes and even the Beaver is busy at this time repairing there dams and building them higher to contain more water for the upcoming summer months.

With the huge returns of Wild Salmon last year we are expecting that this years fry salvage project will be a big one with more fry emerging from the big spawn last fall than we have seen for over 25 years.

Wild Coho are a species that was so abundant within the Salish Sea that fishing the adults was the easiest salmon fishery around. In front of Lantzville every resident that had the ability to fish would be found morning and night trolling or mooching out in front of Winchelsea Islands.

It did not take too long to limit out your catch and this was true for the whole of the Salish Sea. For some reason, loss of habitat, Hatchery over production, the stocks of Salish Sea wild Coho plummeted from the early 80’s onward.

Pumping thousands of Hatchery [fish factory] Coho into every stream from here to there in a vain attempt to bolster stocks proved to be a catastrophic failure with the continued decline of genetic diversity the stocks of wild Coho declined almost to the point of collapse.

Back in the height of the Coho crisis DFO applied a coast wide closure with the exception of certain fishing lodges who had whined that there businesses would suffer so they got exclusion zones around there lodges.  Habitat loss along with over zealous transplanting of these factory fish almost brought the Wild Coho to extinction.

A few but sad to say not all stream keeper groups around the coast stayed away from the hatchery model of recovery even though this meant they did not get access to the huge funding opportunities that installing a hatchery would entail.

As with every thing in life when money enters the picture it seems all common sense goes out the window.

I have heard many times that if you would only build a hatchery you would have lots of funding and something for the volunteers to do over the winter.

Real stream keepers have no problem finding projects to do if they are truly active and want to really help the environment not only fish but also all flora and fauna.

Many groups fall into the trap of bureaucracy becoming heavy with meetings, planning committees etc, chasing funding leaving no time to walk the streams and see how nature works without money or frivolous endeavours to sate the ego more than help the environment.

When decisions are made without regard to what is actually happening in nature and money becomes the driving force then failure will surely follow.

Most stream projects have no follow up or ongoing monitoring once the checks are cut.

The best projects come from years of watching how the streams function then you come to the conclusion that most of what you may think needs doing does not.

Leaving well enough alone does not come easy as humans we have a tendency to think we know best.

Stream Keepers April 2014-03-30

April is upon us, cherry and plums trees flowering everywhere you look, buds on the trees and fish emerging from the substrate. Soon all the Wild Chum fry will be gone from the streams and the young wild Coho will be occupying the pools. Chums become free swimmers very quick and once this takes place off they go to sea going on their great trek around the north Pacific having the largest range of all the Salmon species. According to records the largest Chum caught was in Edie Pass BC weighing in at 42 pounds and 44 inches long, now that is one big Chum. I have caught many in the 10 to 20 pound range and believe me when you get a Chum on a light rod and reel you have a good fight on to land the fish. If in the river you have no chance if they decide to head down stream at a alarming rate of speed peeling off your line until it breaks or if strong enough line the fish becomes exhausted and then you can muscle them to shore so I can only imagine hooking into a 42 pounder. One of the longest migrations back to the spawning grounds takes place on the Yukon River, Mackenzie River and on the Amur River in Asia a true marathon swimmer by any standard. Last week we placed our smolts’ counting fence and box at Swan Lake to catch any early outgoing Coho. With the box in place we will visit it twice a week until the main out migration begins in earnest then every day to count and empty the box.

 This last week we have had some torrential downpours that have brought high levels of flow to all our streams and being a warm rain it seems to be melting any snow still laying in the upper watersheds contributing to flows.

From February to May is the spawning time for Sea Run Cutthroat Trout often the unseen visitor to our streams. Wandering into and out of the streams all year and sometimes to over winter within the stream. The young can spend up to 3 years in the stream before heading out to sea living for about 10 years if they can survive being over fished and habitat loss due to urban planning placing many of there traditional small streams within storm drains.

Lantzville had a very productive Cutthroat trout stream, Slogar Brook flowing from Negrins farm down through the Kennel property over Leyland Rd and Peterson, Sebastion roads finally flowing down the beach into the Salish Sea. I doubt if many even spawn there any more, though ever the optimist I expect there are some sneak in and spawn. There are some resident trout and hopefully some will return to the sea as sea run. One local who lives at the creek told of his son catching them on a regular basis and a long time resident who used to live on the creek tells of listening to them at night making there way upstream splashing along from pool to pool. Bloods Creek has a good run and so does Knarston sometimes they can be confused with a late run of Coho but chances are they are Cutthroat often seen in February heading up to spawn.

This is a important time to be aware of what you allow to enter the watershed via your septic tank, roadside ditch and now the sewer which you may get the false sense of “Oh its okay we now have a sewer so I can dump anything down the drain or toilet but and this is a big but you must remember that all sewers lead to the Ocean as we still have this idea that dumping sewage into the sea is out of sight out of mind. Our sewer system flows to Hammond Bay Road pumping station and treatment facility where it receives minimal treatment [chlorine injection and sedimentation] before being pumped out to sea. If it was just human waste the ocean can easily break that down but with modern living we tend to use all kinds of chemicals usually not even knowing what they are hidden behind that appealing label or slick TV ad. Even medical waste from medication [birth control pills] has been attributed to gender bending among resident river fish where sewer is dumped into rivers. Live smart and think about the bigger picture because we are the only animals on the planet who have the arrogance and ability to effect often to there detriment all other life as we know it on this planet we call Earth as it takes its ever spinning journey through the universe.

 

Stream Keepers

March has come rather fast this year as February goes out with hopefully a last blast of winter weather. Though I herald the arrival of snow for it’s role in watershed re-charge I would like it to remain up in the hills and mountains and not covering my garden just as I start to get more active pruning, weeding etc.

March as I said last month will bring the  [hopefully] Herring spawning along our shores.

 Just the other day I read a paper by -

Iain McKechnie, Dana Lepofsky and Ken Lertzman,

 “The baseline (data) that is used to assess biomass of herring and the allotment to the commercial fishery only begins in 1951,” said McKechnie. “The data doesn’t go back far enough, and it conveniently limits the goal of recovery as well.” The west coast herring fishery was closed for four years between 1968 and 1971 after a complete collapse of the population. DFO documents note that even after numbers rebounded, “some previously-favored spawning locations were no longer utilized on a regular basis.”

Oral histories from fishermen and First Nations people describe spawning areas and fishing grounds that were productive over generations, with native place names such as Ch’axa’y (Sizzling Water) and Teeshoshum (Waters White With Herring Spawn). Bone samples collected at Teeshoshum are composed of 90 per cent herring over 800 years, but no spawning has been recorded there since 1998.

As you can read we have done these very important fish a disservice through miss management which when you take into account the loss of forest cover and further miss management of our wild Salmon stocks you can see clearly why now is the time to take a serious look at the whole ecosystem we call the west coast and lobby government to take some drastic steps to try to get us back on course to a sustainable environment.

When I say sustainable I do not mean sustainability in the sense the word is bandied about these days in a feel good way while ignoring the inevitable collapse of our collective ecosystems.

To be sustainable is to live within the means of our environment, not keep coming up with new reasons to move the goal posts.

This is no more evident than on the central coast where we all get a good feeling at the creation of the Great Bear Rain Forest touted as the savoir of the Bears and the once mighty forests that shrouded the coast which now as you read this the logging corporations are still going along full bore just over the hill out of sight of any marine traffic preserving what they call the visual corridor.

So while we all catch the Herring fever few realize that this is one if not the most destructive fishery we have on the coast which has such nock on effects that we cannot collectively comprehend the magnitude that this fishery has on all other fish stocks along our coast.

When was the last time you enjoyed a plate of fresh Herring for lunch or dinner?? Never I often hear when I ask this question, a sad statement when at one time Herring did play an important role in the diets of the peoples of the west coast.

Among our first nations folk roe on seaweed was a very important food source, fires all along the foreshore roasting Herring was a regular sight now but a distant memory.

So here is a favorite recipe of mine for Star Gazey Pie if you are lucky to get some Herring.

Vegetables of choice or what you have available chopped into small chunks, sauté in olive oil with onions and garlic, remove from heat and prepare your fresh Herring by removing the internal organs and gills but leaving the head intact, [de scale] place veggies in baking dish with a little extra olive oil and some crushed tomatoes or a little water and tomatoe paste , salt and pepper, then carefully place the whole Herring around the pan with heads towards the middle.

Next comes the tricky part, prepare your favorite pastry recipe for a one crust pie, [ the one on the Crisco box works great, freeze the Crisco and then grate into dough] roll out to fit pan, now you have to lay the crust on top and for the tricky bit gently slice the dough so that the Herring heads stick up out of the top of the crust in a nice circle around the centre of the pan. [Star Gazing]

Bake at 425 for 30 to 40 minutes until crust is nice and brown. You can brush with egg white to get a nice even brown to the crust before you place in hot oven.

Serve with a nice salad of fresh greens with, if you can get some seaweed. The sea weed you see growing along the rocks that looks like a hand waving, [Fucus distichus ssp. Evanescens] common name Rockweed, not too appetizing looking when fresh. Pick from a non polluted spot then blanch in boiling water and it will turn a nice green then add to salad, yum.

When picking seaweed to eat always go to the most remote spot you can find along the foreshore away from any form of pollution.

The Salish Sea has such diversity that due to our collective recklessness we have allowed the depletion of what was once one of the most productive bodies of water in the world.

Pulp Mills, Chemical plants, Oil Refineries, Industrial run off and licensed discharge [so called safe limits, ppm], Storm drains, [road runoff] Sewage discharge, [often unprocessed or at best minimal]

Household chemicals, Etc.

Down the drain and into the sea, out of sight out of mind.

I could go on and on but you get the picture we have collectively allowed all this mostly due to government inaction and always being subservient to industry. [Oil sands, we all know how destructive they have become and the potential for even worse case scenarios if allowed to ship from our coast.]

In the year 2014 there is no sensible argument for any of the aforementioned to be allowed when weighed against the health of not only humans but also all flora & fauna that inhabit this coast. I know its jobs etc but we can have those jobs just not the pollution they create. The root cause is Profit and greed so much so that now greed is considered an attribute to be admired as we all rush to achieve the consumer of the year award.

Stream Keepers May 2014-05-03

Stream keeping in the rain out in the forest is a real pleasure at this time of year.

 Everywhere life is bursting forth from emergent fry to nesting birds, trees beginning to flush with spring growth. Salmonberry sprouts emerging from the forest floor makes a nice snack when walking along the streams, just realized that’s the perfect snack in the bush for a stream keeper.

We have our smolts counting fence in place with around 20 fish so far moving through all around 115mm to 135mm with a couple of nice trout around 200mm.

Giant Water Bugs find there way into the box on occasion, around 35mm they look formidable with the ability to suck the meat out of a fish leaving only skin and bone. Handle with care and off they go back into the stream.

Some Hog Weed eradication is another project we tackle at this time of year and after several years we seem to be holding it at bay isolated to one spot.

Removal is by hand with extreme care not to get the sap onto your skin, as it is toxic.

Clearing Broom is safer though more daunting as it seems to grow as fast as you cut it. Broom now can be found way up in the bush as well as around suburbia, though a nice looking flower it does out compete native plants.

Down in the estuary life also is bursting forth with Geese nesting, Red Wig Blackbirds, Ducks of all shapes and sizes and even the Beaver is busy at this time repairing there dams and building them higher to contain more water for the upcoming summer months.

With the huge returns of Wild Salmon last year we are expecting that this years fry salvage project will be a big one with more fry emerging from the big spawn last fall than we have seen for over 25 years.

Wild Coho are a species that was so abundant within the Salish Sea that fishing the adults was the easiest salmon fishery around. In front of Lantzville every resident that had the ability to fish would be found morning and night trolling or mooching out in front of Winchelsea Islands.

It did not take too long to limit out your catch and this was true for the whole of the Salish Sea. For some reason, loss of habitat, Hatchery over production, the stocks of Salish Sea wild Coho plummeted from the early 80’s onward.

Pumping thousands of Hatchery [fish factory] Coho into every stream from here to there in a vain attempt to bolster stocks proved to be a catastrophic failure with the continued decline of genetic diversity the stocks of wild Coho declined almost to the point of collapse.

Back in the height of the Coho crisis DFO applied a coast wide closure with the exception of certain fishing lodges who had whined that there businesses would suffer so they got exclusion zones around there lodges.  Habitat loss along with over zealous transplanting of these factory fish almost brought the Wild Coho to extinction.

A few but sad to say not all stream keeper groups around the coast stayed away from the hatchery model of recovery even though this meant they did not get access to the huge funding opportunities that installing a hatchery would entail.

As with every thing in life when money enters the picture it seems all common sense goes out the window.

I have heard many times that if you would only build a hatchery you would have lots of funding and something for the volunteers to do over the winter.

Real stream keepers have no problem finding projects to do if they are truly active and want to really help the environment not only fish but also all flora and fauna.

Many groups fall into the trap of bureaucracy becoming heavy with meetings, planning committees etc, chasing funding leaving no time to walk the streams and see how nature works without money or frivolous endeavours to sate the ego more than help the environment.

When decisions are made without regard to what is actually happening in nature and money becomes the driving force then failure will surely follow.

Most stream projects have no follow up or ongoing monitoring once the checks are cut.

The best projects come from years of watching how the streams function then you come to the conclusion that most of what you may think needs doing does not.

Leaving well enough alone does not come easy as humans we have a tendency to think we know best

Down in the Estuary.

Foggy days

Slow water drifts

Sea Run Trout flash

Beaver dam roars

Geese honk, Ducks quack

Eagle stares

Fish Bone remnants drift by

Another perfect day 

Stream Keepers February.

Rain, we finally had some, seems like it is odd to herald the coming of rain unless in the middle of a drought but rain and more rain is what we need for the streams. If you go walking in the hills you will notice that most wetlands are more on the low side as opposed to overflowing which is the norm for January.   Low rain events over the winter combined with low snowfalls does little for the re-charge of our watersheds. The rain has little chance to soak into the ground with the surface dry most water runs off towards the nearest stream or wetland without soaking into the ground and eventually re-charging the aquifers beneath.

Somewhere out there is an equation to calculate how long it takes water [rain] that has soaked into the ground to reach the aquifers and eventually discharge through wetlands, springs and evaporation. [It takes a long time]

As we know forests can create their own weather and rain events from the evaporation given off by the trees, if you look towards the mountains during one of those now rare wet periods you can see moisture flowing out of the trees like wisps of cloud rising from the forest.

Lately the only weather we have seen created by the trees is from all the fog we have been getting as the fog condenses among the needles creating rain beneath. This does bode well for the trees but does not give enough to recharge the wetland and aquifers; we need lots of rain for that.

 Planting trees is one of the most rewarding and helpful experiences the volunteer’s do outside of salvaging fry.

To plant a tree gives the volunteers a sense of ownership and pride when that tree eventually pokes its top above the shrubbery and starts it journey to become a mature tree, hopefully many hundreds of years old before it falls to continue its cycle of life and death unhampered by mans need to cut them down.

 That is the nice thing about the estuary that being a nature preserve we have great expectations that any tree that survives the Deer browse, the Beavers lunch, Voles or Mice chewing them to feed on the bark and any other natural misfortune they may experience we will see them reaching for the sky.

This also holds true to a certain degree for any tree planted by the side of any stream but the sad thing is that around human habitation trees tend to get cut down either for a view or paranoia that they may fall on the house.

Many years ago we had a tree that was around 100+ years old growing beside the road when the neighbour said he was going to cut it down as he stated he did not trust it, I replied ‘Trust it, how can you not trust a tree, it is not going anywhere and is not going to ask to borrow any money” and it is on the road right of way therefore not yours to cut down, his reply was that it may fall down, of course it may fall but also it may not as a mature Douglas Fir [menziesii] can live for a 1,000 years and around 200 years when seed production reaches its peak so as you can see most trees you can see on any given day is no more than a teenager far from the once mature trees which made this coast what it was prior to removing the vast majority of the coasts forest cover. Connect this to the productivity of our wild Salmon and you can begin to understand the great loss we have experienced this past mere hundred years. [Of course I came home one day and the tree was cut down] A true tragedy of the commons.

Down in the estuary at the head of the bay we had one flood where the streams overflowed their banks and created flooding all the way back to the rail tracks just short of the Petro Can station at NW Bay Rd during that one and only large rain event we did have. The water was at one was point not much more than 6 inches from topping NW Bay Rd at one location, this demonstrates the speed in which our watersheds discharge when we do get some rain. Under normal [if there is such a thing] conditions the rain would soak in and discharge much slower taking days for water levels to rise, now we se it occurring the very next if not the same day as the rain. This can lead to Salmon eggs being flushed out of the substrate or being buried too deep for the fry to emerge due to heavy sediment loads washing off the land via roads and ditches leading directly to the streams. Speaking of roads we have thousands of kilometres of asphalt roads, which leach out toxic hydrocarbons into the environment. A recent study on leachate in road runoff was conducted to see what if any effect this leachate had on Coho Fry, water samples where taken and introduced into a tank with Coho fry from roadside ditches that had no vegetation, the result being that most Coho died from the toxic run off.

The next test was with water flowing off the road into a vegetated ditch which had the result of no mortalities when fry where introduced showing how the vegetation has the ability to filter out a portion of the toxins. As a result today if made aware of this most road maintenance crews stay away from so called cleaning of ditches and instead just maintain the culverts with a hand shovel to clean out any blockages.

Recently we have looked at the possibility of opening fish access above the highway at the fire hall on Knarston Creek. This will take the form of a fish habitat survey [fisheries level one survey] from the Salish Sea to the upper watershed. This will quantify the habitat parameters and allow us to see if it is possible to open up this long neglected habitat.

In years past some fry salvage was done on Knarston when time and conditions dictated and these fish where placed in Dumont Marsh for year round habitat. Some of these fish will residualise if they cannot get out to the Salish Sea but most if not all will migrate down the stream to the sea either as 1+ year olds or as two year+ olds. Anyone who went along the shore at Knarston this past fall will have had the treat of seeing many Wild Coho jumping along the shore, this does not mean that they were all awaiting the chance to enter Knarston because a lot of these fish could end up in any one of the streams around Nanoose Bay or even further like Nanaimo river and other streams around Nanaimo or even all the way up towards the Englishmen River.

Without an active tagging program we can only guess the streams these fish will spawn in.

Coming up over the next two months is also a good chance to see the major forage fish during its annual spawning run along the shore, the once mighty Herring.

 Like the once mighty forests we had humongous runs of Herring every year spawning like a great silver wave hitting the coast from San Francisco in the south to Alaska in the North.

 Like a tidal wave these once abundant fish poured onto the beaches spawning in their millions providing a food source for all the fish in the sea and most important for our young salmon exiting the streams in the spring.

 Take some time towards the end of the month and into next month to walk to the beach and witness one of nature true marvels before it is all gone.

 Due to mismanagement of the resource through over fishing a fish species, [ read East Coast Cod]which can spawn for several years during its life cycle, taken solely for its eggs to sate an appetite in Japan. Last year we had no shallow water spawning due mainly to a whole fleet of seine boats being allowed to fish the stocks that were getting ready to spawn along the foreshore of Nanoose Bay and Lantzville.

Enjoy nature as much as possible and all its wonder, take the kids for walks so they can experience nature first hand other than on TV and they may grow up avoiding what is termed Natures Deficit Syndrome. That is when humans lose their connection with nature and experience only man made landscapes.

When a city dweller gets a chance to walk in nature the one common remark they all make is how good they feel after such a walk, which shows how we all can benefit from a good walk along the foreshore or in the woods.

If you can get the chance to visit the central coast or as it has become known as The Great Bear Rain Forest do so as soon as you can to truly experience a real rain forest before it is all gone.

Stream Keepers December

Merry holidays to all and thanks from the fish who by now have most of their eggs firmly buried within the substrate of our local streams once again continuing with their evolutionary journey through time.

Awesome is the only way to describe the returns of Wild Coho on all our streams this last month. Though a little late on some streams they were a little early on others. I do hope you got out to view these fish as they made there way up stream and if not you may still have a chance as the late runs come in. You do not have to look too hard to see them this year due to their abundance.

Bloods Creek Wild Coho were all the way above the highway but due to lower than usual flows were unable to make it all the way to Green Lake. Chum were seen within the lower reaches though once they get past the highway they have a hard time moving further into the system. The Wild Coho at one time moved all the way up into Copley Creek above Green Lake. Due to a dam placed on the stream back in the coal mining days stopped this upstream migration though the mining company did say they would build a fish ladder it never came to fruition and only when the dam was gone did fish move back upstream.

Knarston Creek had a good return moving all the way to the highway where a hung culvert behind the fire hall stops them, which is sad for the fish as at one time they went all the way up above the highway in to the foothills like Bloods Creek. [Bad planning by highways or bad advice when they redid the highway back in the day]

 If you were into ocean beach fishing Knarston was the spot this year as it seemed that all the Coho in the bay were of the mouth of Knarston along the shore.

 One report was out of 21 Coho caught only one was marked as a hatchery fish with the adipose removed. They stayed along the shore so long this year that upon returning into spawn they had turned black and red already instead of being silver bright in the stream.

Even Dublin Gulch at the Nanoose rest area had a small showing of Wild Coho pushing up from the beach, though only a small number return and have limited spawning opportunities before coming to the barrier falls. Well worth the short walk back up the stream to see the falls especially when the falls are frozen.

 Bonnel Creek was awesome with an early showing of small what I would think were female Chum due to there small size followed by a really good run of Wild Coho, which also brought in another flush of Chum this time larger and more abundant. Walking the entire length of available spawning habitat we were surprised at the amount of both the Coho and Chum throughout the whole system, which bodes well for the future.

Recently a document came into my possession, which showed data from the early 70’s when Bonnel had counts of thousands of Chum. Also in the data was a prescription for removal of Beaver dams and logs jams along with gravel removal, which went ahead with DFO approval. From that year on the runs began to decline until the returning numbers went down in to the low hundreds and even lower in some years. This was a case of putting the cart before the horse so to speak, remove the habitat and the spawning gravel and then the stream flows unhindered to the Salish Sea just like building a big ditch. What was not considered was that entire habitat was contributing to those large returns of Chum and Coho.

 In the case this year on Nanoose Creek I had to keep some volunteers from wanting to pull the Beaver dams as they thought they were a impediment to the Chum from moving further upstream. Upon further walks upstream Chum were found way above the highway showing how they could transit those dams and any other log debris jams they encountered. The Wild Coho on Nanoose were observed as far up as Matthew Crossing and beyond with another spectacular run after all these years of slow returns. Again a good example of just leaving the habitat alone and it will take care of itself.

Craig Creek had a good return also of Chum and Coho. The Coho can go as far as the logging camp when flows allow which on most years is as late as Xmas with the chum being restricted to the lower reaches. In the days past a small Chum hatchery was placed on the lower Craig to try to increase the numbers but as usual failed and the only achievement was the further depletion of the wild stocks. When you have kilometres of habitat for the Salmon to spawn unhindered you have to allow nature to take its course even though man thinks he knows what is best for nature it does not always work that way. [Ego]

As we know all Salmon and Trout’s have adapted over the millennia to be able spawn and rear in each stream building immunities and adapting to all the conditions specific to that stream even down to the individual tributary. A Salmon is a Salmon I hear after all there brains are no where as big as ours in fact they are about the size of a pea. Pea brained they maybe but in size only and the more I find out about past practices on our local streams I think it is the humans that made those detrimental decisions that have the pea brain. Ever try to catch a fish? Sure you can but many times you will be outwitted by that fish with only a brain the size of a pea. Go figure. It was also good to see Black’y or one of his offspring back down in the estuary at the head of the bay taking his fill of Chum, which is the easiest for the bear to catch. All he has to do is sit in an advantages spot along the banks or on a log and take his pick. Watching a bear fish is wild to say the least, they tend to look uninterested then suddenly down plunges his paw and bam there is a fish hang off his claws then up on the bank or log if enough room and chomp goes a big chunk from the back of the head then tossed into the pile. When they have time it is amazing to see peel off the skin better than I can do with my filleting knife as they devour the rest leaving the scraps for rocky Racoon, Mink, Otter and even the birds all taking there share, even the flora gets a good hit of nutrients via the excrement deposited throughout the forest.

Happy New Year to all and we all look forward to the coming emergence from the gravel next spring of yet another start of the incredible journey the Salmon undertake to complete their life cycle once again.

Stream keepers January 2014

Where has all the rain gone, what was the wet coast has been the dry coast so far this winter which for the fish maybe a problem next year with limited recharge within the watersheds.

With a recent walk along Bloods Crk from Lantzville Rd to the highway and above it was gratifying to see dead carcasses still visible here and there. This section just below the highway is a hidden jewel this close to the village core, a little difficult to walk down into the gully but well worth it. { Possible park status ?]

This is the site of one of the volunteer garbage cleanups we conducted in the past where we removed a big dumpster load of garbage, it was good to find very little trash and no garbage dumped down the bank.

With all the eggs tucked away within the substrate walking the streambed is not advisable until the fry have emerged next spring. With winter we get some sea run cutthroat venturing into our streams looking for stray eggs and later on spawning opportunities for there own offspring.

The small stream called Slogar Brook which runs from the kennel property parallel to Lantzville road then down Sebastion to exit on Sebastion beach at one time was a active spawning stream for Sea Run Cutthroat as late as the 80,s fish were reported to be seen spawning.

The stream contains native Cutthroat, which remain their whole life within the stream hence being on the small size when compared to the Sea Run cutthroat. Due to urban devolpement the only continuous wetted reach runs from the beach to Lantzville Rd.

Above very little wetted habitat is available due to being ditched over the years and overall flows restricted from diversions.

The only stream that was showing difficulty was Craig Creek due to its flow going subsurface at Northwest Bay Rd. On recent walks below the road we found carcasses and bits lying along the banks down to the estuary at the Salish Sea.

 In years past when we had been walking along the upper reaches we encountered Wild Coho making their way upstream as late as January.

How do Salmon find their place of birth, often asked I usually reply that they smell the river or stream of their birth, smell how can that be they say so I go on to explain how a fishes brain is kind of shaped like a Y with the thinking part at the Y junction and on either end of the top of the Y are the olfactory organs which are connected directly to the nose allowing the fish to smell the free molecules in fresh water and hence can detect individual drops that come from the very same pool that they were born into.

This is another reason that wild Salmon are more able to survive than hatchery fish by passing on this trait to their offspring, which in the hatchery environs does not occur.

A study done on sockeye showed that after catching fish off Haida Gwai and blinding some fish while blocking the noses of others resulted in only the ones who made it back were the ones who were blinded. Another study found that when gravel was replaced with fresh gravel often from a quarry the fish had a hard time finding a familiar place to spawn due to the smell of the gravel being different, go figure something as simple as smell would be one of the main reasons for millions of Salmon returning to there home waters.

Trees which grow in particular soil types also affect the PH of the water which in turn affects the smell that is why when a different species of tree is re-planted the PH of the water exiting the forest is changed further confusing the fishes sense of smell.

Over the holidays we planted native trees right up to Xmas mainly down in the wildlife reserve at the head of the bay, which contains Bonnel and Nanoose Creeks.

We still saw dead Chum laying all throughout the estuary mainly due to the low flows and lack of rain not flushing them out and most wildlife being sated on fish from the big runs last fall.  When they get hungry later they may still munch on those rotten old eyeless Chum drifting around the streams.

With all the eggs tucked away nice and snug in their gravel we now await their emergence from the gravel this coming spring to begin their epic life cycle and journey around the Pacific Ocean.

Fishy Fish

Estuary days

Still the water sits

Sleeping

Ripples stir the surface

Cronk goes Heron

Mother Salmon calls

The return begins.