Community Articles
General News · 10th December 2024
Christine/FOCI Streamkeepers
Excerpts from the 2024 FOCI Streamkeeper Report
The 2024 fall spawning season has been extraordinarily spectacular Jaw-dropping unbelievable Annually, we monitor 8 creeks that may have returning chum, although some of these creeks have had very small runs or no spawners on some years. Salmon showed up in all 8 creeks this fall, with amazing numbers in Basil, Squirrel Cove, James, Hansen Creeks, and notable numbers in Whaletown Creek. We stopped counting chum in Basil Creek after one day’s count was 800+ fish, fresh fish were coming in daily and it was becoming too difficult to count accurately. And still the chum kept coming.
The extraordinary numbers extended the spawning area higher upstream than has been observed for 30+ years in Basil & Whaletown Creeks. One of the surprises was to see the little Squirrel Cove Creek, around the corner from the Klahoose village, full of a couple hundred chum. The approximate total number of 3,300 chum for Cortes were submitted to Fisheries & Oceans.
A general and notable observation from streamkeepers and the community was that the chum were larger, healthier (showing no or minimal white decay), mostly free of sea lice, and moving up the creeks faster than we have historically seen.
The high numbers and vigour of the chum enabled two wild egg takes in 2024 from brood stock in Basil Creek: October 17 – 10 pairs and October 22 – 14 pairs. Approximately 50,000 chum eggs were placed in the Klahoose hatchery. These eggs are exceptionally healthy & large and half were left in the hatchery over the winter, and half were dispersed between the Whaletown incubation box in the Whaletown Commons and James Creek in the Children’s Forest. An exceptional team of young adults helped build 5 redds in James Creek using the last of the spawning gravel donated and deposited by highways. Babes and Alanah were the chum heroes of the day, along with Jasmine, Forrest, Savannah, Maya, Jordan, Josh, Kellen, Tosh & Liam.
A huge appreciation to the 25 + volunteer streamkeepers who assist in these projects, and to the many community eyes for their engagement in this critical & wild phenomenon!!!
Special thanks to the Klahoose Fisheries for the opportunity to collaborate on salmon enhancement and for the use of the shared hatchery.
Update – Fall chum stocks are the big news story of 2024 along the BC coast, Alaska and further south. Many people are asking why? There is a complexity of overlapping factors, and a fair bit of speculation at this date, but some of the possible explanations are: the right oceanic conditions of temperature, currents and feed in the Pacific; strong 4-year cycles for chum (2016, 2020, and 2024 were significant years for Cortes); and the possibility that closures of some fish farms in the Discovery Islands and Broughton Archipelago had some influence, which is being scrutinized closely by researchers such as Alexandra Morton and Watershed Watch.
The 2024 fall spawning season has been extraordinarily spectacular Jaw-dropping unbelievable Annually, we monitor 8 creeks that may have returning chum, although some of these creeks have had very small runs or no spawners on some years. Salmon showed up in all 8 creeks this fall, with amazing numbers in Basil, Squirrel Cove, James, Hansen Creeks, and notable numbers in Whaletown Creek. We stopped counting chum in Basil Creek after one day’s count was 800+ fish, fresh fish were coming in daily and it was becoming too difficult to count accurately. And still the chum kept coming.
The extraordinary numbers extended the spawning area higher upstream than has been observed for 30+ years in Basil & Whaletown Creeks. One of the surprises was to see the little Squirrel Cove Creek, around the corner from the Klahoose village, full of a couple hundred chum. The approximate total number of 3,300 chum for Cortes were submitted to Fisheries & Oceans.
A general and notable observation from streamkeepers and the community was that the chum were larger, healthier (showing no or minimal white decay), mostly free of sea lice, and moving up the creeks faster than we have historically seen.
The high numbers and vigour of the chum enabled two wild egg takes in 2024 from brood stock in Basil Creek: October 17 – 10 pairs and October 22 – 14 pairs. Approximately 50,000 chum eggs were placed in the Klahoose hatchery. These eggs are exceptionally healthy & large and half were left in the hatchery over the winter, and half were dispersed between the Whaletown incubation box in the Whaletown Commons and James Creek in the Children’s Forest. An exceptional team of young adults helped build 5 redds in James Creek using the last of the spawning gravel donated and deposited by highways. Babes and Alanah were the chum heroes of the day, along with Jasmine, Forrest, Savannah, Maya, Jordan, Josh, Kellen, Tosh & Liam.
A huge appreciation to the 25 + volunteer streamkeepers who assist in these projects, and to the many community eyes for their engagement in this critical & wild phenomenon!!!
Special thanks to the Klahoose Fisheries for the opportunity to collaborate on salmon enhancement and for the use of the shared hatchery.
Update – Fall chum stocks are the big news story of 2024 along the BC coast, Alaska and further south. Many people are asking why? There is a complexity of overlapping factors, and a fair bit of speculation at this date, but some of the possible explanations are: the right oceanic conditions of temperature, currents and feed in the Pacific; strong 4-year cycles for chum (2016, 2020, and 2024 were significant years for Cortes); and the possibility that closures of some fish farms in the Discovery Islands and Broughton Archipelago had some influence, which is being scrutinized closely by researchers such as Alexandra Morton and Watershed Watch.
