The Indian River north of Vancouver had a return of 500k pink salmon this past season where the fish found sections of the river bed were dry. Efforts to save what could be saved were carried out by the Tsleil-Waututh Nation assisted by DFO personnel:
https://twnation.ca/tlr-drought-response-work-at-indian-river-watershed-on-september-15-16-2023/We started the emergency work to save the trapped salmon. We worked for two days to dig a deep and long trench with an excavator through the disconnected gravel bar and were able to reconnect the mainstem river flows. It’s never easy or advisable to work with heavy machinery in a river when so many fish are actively spawning, but we were not going to sit back and watch a full scale climate disaster unfold. This work needed to be done in order to save tens of thousands of salmon.
This is the second year in a row that the river has gone subsurface (dried up in sections). The biggest difference from this year to last is that the river has dried up a full month earlier than last year, and we have nearly half a million salmon currently in the river. We are thrilled that this years pink run is quite large, but the on-going drought and low river levels are not working in our favour. Fingers crossed for rain!
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Topic: Indian River De-watering during pink salmon return. (Read 2336 times)