Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Randog]

From what I see in this policy, there dosen't appear to be any underlying cost savings agenda to it. I think WALP is just hell bent to see so called "wild" steelhead in most of the rivers on B.C. period. You can put any kind if spin on it you like, (make the stock wild so that it's all catch and release, same fish gets hooked over and over again, more anglers on the flow = more Provincial revenue through lisc. sales) I could probably dream up 20 more hair brained ideas along the same line that I would'nt put past Walp to concider. The problem is this, WALP see's "wild" fish as a steelhead that has'nt spent it's life in a hatchery facility and has an adipose fin intact. Thats the diffinition that I recieved from Al Martin at the Nanaimo workshop on this policy on Oct. 16/04. Having said that, is it possible that two "hatchery" steelhead could stray into a wild classified stream and spawn and then basterdize that run of fish by introducing inferior hatchery genes to the "wild" strain? WITHOUT DNA samples in would be impossible to tell. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see our streams in B.C.  flourishing with wild steelhead stocks, reality = ain't gonna' happen. I'd hate to see the last two "wild" steelhead swim up the stream to spawn (especially if they're males) 

[Rodney]

Funding of the steelhead program at the Seymour Salmonid Hatchery is also provided by FOC.

[Rodney]

bkk, since you are working at the hatchery up that way and more familiar with the system than everyone else on this board, do you have any suggestions on what needs to be done to improve the returns of steelhead in Squamish and its tributaries? Few of us often comment on how much habitat there is for the fish, yet it's baffling to see low returns. Is the habitat as good as it seems? Would it be better to leave the current environmental state as it is? Is the return so low that a hatchery program is the only solution to see a rebound in numbers? Lastly (you gotta be hating my questions by now with the ones you get in emails and all ), what is the major cause of siltation after each high discharge in that river (it seems to take quite a long time for the water to clear up after each heavy rainfall)?

Ok, really, lastly, under the proposed policy, would Squamish be classified as a wild or hatchery augmented stream?

[bkk]

Rod;

I will try and answer your question as clearly as I can:
1) We need the habitat restoration projects to continue to restore and improve habitat. The problem with this is that it's expensive to work in the main river areas. A lot of the "easier" projects have been done (ie: Shovelnose Creek) so we are now forced to work in the more dynamic areas of the river. With very small to non -existent Provincial budgets, I don't see how this is going to work in the short term. And the problem we have is now critical short term. Runs are very low, just rement amounts in some of the stocks. A lot of the habitat seems to be underutilized, especialy in some of the newer habitat restoration projects. I would suggest that we need to combine these projects with some steelhead enhancement out of a hatchery. I think that we could release unfed steelhead fry and outplant them into this underutilized habitat. The fry would be released straight out of incubation at the same time the wild fry are emerging. There would be no size diference between the fish that had protected incubation and the fish that were born in the stream. The big gain is the amount of fry that could be released per adult steelhead spawned. In the Squamish system with it's dyamic flood and glacial runoff events, egg to fry survival is low 1- 20 % ( as a rule). With hatchery incubation, you should get minimum 60 - 80%. This should produce fish to smolt as well as the river spawned fish. I would then hope that they would return in sufficent numbers to then seed the habitat on there own. With the Oylmpics and the District of Squamish expecting to double in the next 15 years, we can't affort to wait another 20 years to see what WLAP has in store for recovery. We just don't have that luxury if we want fishable numbers of steelhead to be here.
2) The Squamish clears slowly after a major rain or storm primarly due to geography. Mountains are steep, rugged and glacier capped. As most people are aware, glaciers have receded significantly in our liftimes. As they recede they leave behind, sand, silt, gravel and glacial flour ( very fine sediments). With the rains and non-freezing events, this just flows downstream and ends up in the river. This is why the river clears much quicker once the snow line drops. All of the sediment freezes up for the winter and then comes down the following spring and fall.
3) It my understanding that the Province is going to class the Squamish system as wild only. Or so I hear. It might be better to class the upper river that and try some enhancement on the Mamquam or Cheakamus. That along with more restoration on both of those rivers. At any rate that is what I would do if I were King for a day. I 'm sure some of the purists  won't agree with my plan, but tough. Is this about ideals or about saveing a once great river. If we don't break out of the way we have been doing steelhead bussiness for the last 25 years, then the next 25 look pretty grim in my part of the world.

[Smiley]

randog you could be right on 2 hatcheries making a wild unless they are born missing the adipose fin.bkk do all your hatchery fish get clipped before being release.the reason i ask is i know some people that work as clippers say they never clip all the fish.just to many to do.they have worked at the cowichan,nitinat,nanaimo,robertson and the rest of the major hatcheries on the island.they have a quota to do in a certain time frame then the rest just get released into the system.the ones that don't get clipped are not wild fish they just look wild.could randogs theory be right maybe all our rivers are already bastardsized. also from what i have been reading on other post it sound like we are heading into centralized hatcheries.fish from the veddar being raised in the chilli.hatch.must be a cost saving management thing. i know on the island we have nitinat taking fish from a number of different rivers and streams and raising them.here is a thought is it possible that some of these fish could be released into the wrong river from where they were taken from. i do not know where the h_ll i am going with this post just like i do not know where that policy is going.

[reach]

Just my $0.02 on hatcheries - I don't like big centralized hatcheries.  They may be more efficient.  But the temptation is there to restrict the gene pool, and the capital and labour costs are significant.

I like the way it was in Pender Harbour when I was living there.  (It may still be running this way; I'm not sure.)  There was a small hatchery on one of the streams feeding Anderson Creek. All the labour to build it and run it was from local volunteers, except for the one guy from DFO (Grant McBain) who supervised.  Occasionally DFO would kick in a little bit of money for capital costs, but the labour was free.  A whole bunch of people from all walks of life - commercial fishermen, sports fishermen, naturalists - would get together for the big chum egg takes, take turns walking the creeks checking the traps for coho, monitoring the hatchery water conditions, clipping smolts, releasing fry, etc.  It brought the community together, preserved local genetics, and cost almost nothing for DFO.

That's why that $4 million cut is so stupid.  If they cut Grant McBain, or the tiny amount of money to buy Heath trays or plastic pipe or oxygen equipment for transporting fry or whatever, then they lose countless hours of volunteer labour.  The SEP money can be multiplied many times over if the community is involved.   It raises awareness about salmonid issues, which will never happen without community involvement.

Anyway, that program has way too much bang for the buck so I guess it's got to go.     Sorry for the hijack.  I'll shut up now as I don't really know much about steelhead.

[Smiley]

to all who have written or read this post.i think we are all on the same side of the fence. it is just so fusstrating when you have some number cruncher or policy maker deciding our recreation activities.i think all of us here want to maintain and sustain our recreation and lively hood whether it be salmon, steelhead,trout and what ever else. it sounds like a lot of us do some sort of volunteer work to try and enhance our oceans, rivers and streams and all we get is a noose around our neck for our efforts. i will continue to do volunteer work as many of you will and i guess time will tell if we get noticed. thats my spew for the day.

[Rodney]

A lot of the habitat seems to be underutilized, especialy in some of the newer habitat restoration projects. I would suggest that we need to combine these projects with some steelhead enhancement out of a hatchery. I think that we could release unfed steelhead fry and outplant them into this underutilized habitat. The fry would be released straight out of incubation at the same time the wild fry are emerging. There would be no size diference between the fish that had protected incubation and the fish that were born in the stream. The big gain is the amount of fry that could be released per adult steelhead spawned.

Thanks for posting that. Interesting proposal of reducing egg to juvenile mortality and I like it. What other hatchery programs have conduct this (releasing fish right after incubation)?

Does the logging further up have an effect on siltation as well?

[TROY B]

My understanding is upper Squamish river steelhead can never come back to historical #s...the reason being is they spawn in small tributary creeks that usesd to come off the moutains and meander along the main steam squamish before joining.Some of these creeks used be 7 to 15 km in length and now are only 2 to 5 km in length so that means less spawning grounds for steelhead..the creeks are shorter now due to flooding wich is caused by logging....

[Rodney]

My understanding is upper Squamish river steelhead can never come back to historical #s...the reason being is they spawn in small tributary creeks that usesd to come off the moutains and meander along the main steam squamish before joining.Some of these creeks used be 7 to 15 km in length and now are only 2 to 5 km in length so that means less spawning grounds for steelhead..the creeks are shorter now due to flooding wich is caused by logging....

But are these existing tributaries are fully utilized during the returns? I highly doubt any system in the Lower Mainland will see historical returns, but how about just work on getting a "good"return for now?

[bkk]

Answers to a couple of questions in regard to Squamish fish:
Smiley: All of the coho smolts from the Tenderfoot stock ( Cheakamus River) get adipose clipped. The other stocks ( Mamquam, Ashlu and Squamish ) are not clipped because a directed harvest is not wanted on these stocks. These stocks are helping to rebuid some of the stocks on those rivers. The Tenderfoot stock returns in sufficent numbers to saturate the habitat in Tenderfoot Lake many times over so this stock can handle a marked kill fishery. The chinook stock in this system is not marked . This was done as a cost saveing measure a few years ago. There is no sport fishery inriver for adult chinook anyway.

Rod: Some of the few hatcheries that still release chum and pinks generally release them as unfed fry. In regard to Squamish logging, it hasen't helped the situation.

Troy B: The only trib in the upper Squamish that is 7 - 15 km long is the Ashlu. A good part of the lower Ashlu did indeed disapear in last falls (2003) huge flood. Most of the other creeks are indeed very small and do meander on the floodplain. These streams are quite small but do contain some of the best steelhead habitat in the valley. Unfortunetly there are not many of these streams. The best stream in the upper Squamish is Shovelnose Creek on the east side. It has seen $ 500 000 worth of work since the mid 90's and most likely produces the most fish in the upper river. In the 80's when the Provincial boys actually spent some time up here working with steelhead, they found that a lot of the steelhead spawned in the groundwater / riverwater mixed side channels in the floodplain. The trib creeks were also used but there was more habitat in the flood plain.

[TROY B]

yes you are right about shovelnose creek being the main producer of the around 250 fish in the upper squamish on a good year now...but what iam saying is all those smaller creeks used to be alot longer which would make more spawning grounds and make up for the other fish that are lost...