June 17, 2008
North Coast
Jan Lemon
Many of the groups had no new information so my report will only cover a few.
Lakelse Watershed Society (LWS)
Enhancement:
Lakelse Watershed Society working with Snootli Hatchery (Bella Coola) collected
290,000 sockeye fry, raised from 96 female and 100 male sockeye taken from Williams Creek, they were released on 29 & 30 April at their original capture point. DFO & LWS did some brief beach netting at various locations in the lake 2 weeks later. We caught 32 sockeye fry of which 6 were hatchery ones (and much larger than the non-hatchery ones). DFO were of the opinion that the fry headed directly for the depths of the lake despite the lack of daphnia present at this time of year. LWS believes that this should provide impetus to improve protection for disappearing lakeshore vegetation.
Science:
Skeena Independent Science Review Report
LWS was pleased to see that the panel had recognized habitat issues affecting Lakelse sockeye, noting that "The Lakelse Lake basin has been heavily impacted by logging in the 1970's, and is now under strong development pressures from recreational properties". However we are not sure if they were aware of plans for renewed cutblocks on the five largest salmon tributaries feeding the lake. LWS finds it astounding that with the new Forest Practices, the local Forestry office is unable to tell us how many cutblocks and where and when they will be active. On the positive side, one cutblock on Williams Creek and adjacent to a proposed spawning channel was selectively logged with very little disturbance to the forest floor or remaining timber. This was achieved in spite of strong resistance from the Forest office who viewed it as "high grading". LWS believes that at least this timber harvesting had much less impact on creek flow and temperature, snow accumulation and sediment movement.
Lakelse Sediment Study
This joint project with Lakelse Watershed Society is aimed at providing baseline data against which future changes can be gauged. Automatic samplers and crest gauges are installed in the 4 main tributaries feeding the lake (Williams, Furlong Hatchery and Scully Creeks). With the hiring of the present BC Conservation Corp employee by Ministry of Environment , LWS is pleased to announce the continuation of data collection to at least the end of November, and hopefully through to next years spring run-off. So far, Furlong Creek stands out as creating large amounts of sediment input to the lake.
Stewardship and Community Involvement:
LWS is delighted to have received funding from the Pacific Salmon Foundation to complete a Sockeye Viewing Project. This collaborative project with BC Parks is on Williams Creek. This should provide the public with extraordinary opportunities to witness amazing sockeye behavior during spawning. Last year interactions could be seen between 5 different versions of the sockeye family, namely 5 year-olds, 4 year-olds, jacks, kokanee and residuals (residuals being similar to the kokanee but olive green instead of red)..
Habitat-freshwater:
Lakeshore Survey
LWS was pleased to learn that the Ministry of Environment intend to carry out a lakeshore video & GPS survey in late July and LWS has expressed our willingness to participate. We have been trying for years to get DFO, MoE and our Regional District to do something about the removal of natural lakeshore vegetation.
Prince Rupert Salmonid Enhancement Society (Oldfield Creek) has been very active in Stewardship, community Involvement and Enhancement
Theyare going ahead in leaps and bounds under the leadership of Stephn Leask and many others. In early June they had requested the public to come and help with their coho smolt release.They were amazed and very pleased at the huge turnout for the event. With renewed interest and an active board of directors they are rebuilding their reputation, doinggood fish culture, revitalizing the facility and getting necessary stream work done .They work with Chinook and pink in the Kloya River and coho in Dianna,Hays, Oldfiled and Morseby . . Oldfield is looking into starting a satellite chum program to kick-start Silver Creek, a system impacted severely by poor past logging practices.They hope to get brood stock from the Tune River in Work Channel and are working with CA Rob Dams to get the necessary permitting. Theywill be pouring the concrete fishes this summer along with Oona River volunteers. Public trails are being refurbished with new crossings. Funding from Pacific Salmon Foundation purchased the material for the bridges and thecarpentry students in the college programme in Terrace built them.They should be in place shortly. The Northwest Community College has partnered with Oldfield Creek and the Coastal Ecology students from the college are working on a monitoring programmeat Oldfieldto do water quality, enhancementtagging, stream surveys and more .The have one volunteer, Don Cross who has taken on restoring the gardens and landscaping and the grounds are looking fantastic!Finally, a month ago they had an open house and brought artist and students together to begin painting wooden salmon, birds, trees, sea creature etc. to be used for a fence mural at Sea fest—happening this weekend.While some volunteerswere painting plaques, others weregiven a tour of the facility and shown the coho smolts.The new water systemis working well and they will have the capacity to do 200,000 + eggs
Oona River Resources Association
Enhancement :
Cool winter temperature put the emergence of the Kumeleon chum fry about 6 weeks behind.The 12000+ fry were marked and successfully released on April 10th.Coho fry, have emerged in the past few weeks and the 2,670 willbe held for the public awareness and education programme
All the necessary equipment has been purchased for the improvement of their the water quality and the installation of a UV filter will start July 3rd. in preparation for the next Kumeleon Chum enhancement project
Stewardship and Community Involvement:
The local fish lodge has started their season and we look forward to them bringing groups through every week for a tour. Two hired summer students will give tours andassist inall the various aspects of fish rearing and releasing, helping with maintenance, stream assessments and general hatchery operations.
The Northwest Community College three day field trip is already in the planning for the first week in September and it will be larger this fall as some of the students from last year who were not able to come then, will be there.These students are always a big potential as our future volunteers and often graduate and get jobs in various fields related to salmon, habitat and enhancement. :
Bear River Enhancement Society
Habitait-Ocean:
This stewardship group in Stewart plan to do an estuary clean-up this summer.For any of you who have been to Stewart, you will know what a huge job this will be as it is a very large and complex estuary.
Hartley Bay (CEDP)
Enhancement:
Hartley Bay will be out planting 222.k Coho into Angler Cove, Whalen and Red Bluff lakes.The remaining 30,000 Coho will go into the river by Hartley Bay.Their manager, Danny Danes said they have had heavy snow damage this winterto the planksidewalk to the headwater lake which will require extensive repairs
June 17, 2008
Central Coast
CA Sandie MacLaurin
Temporary rep-Jan Lemon
A formal report for this area will be coming at the fall meeting.I hope to be able to make more contacts and begin to build dialogue with the volunteers for this area.Finding a representative to the SEHAB board is vitalas the Central coast is avast, complex area and has rivers, habitat and fish issues which are unique and important to the whole province.