Sunday, July 19, 2009

Saturday 18 July

Roy, John, MP J Lunney, Al, Ed and Terry.


On last Tuesday we made another sweep of the remaining pools on Bonnel Creek managing to salvage a couple of hundred fry which we moved up to the Lake. This ended the first phase of fry salvage until water levels drop above the highway then we will continue all the way upstream until we reach the point where pool habitat remains wetted with what subsurface flow remains. Hopefully we will get some heavy rain soon to help replenish the upper watershed.

Today we all met at Lussiers pit and went down to the gas line crossing on Bonnel Creek. Two small pools have become isolated from the main channel along the base of the big gravel deposit below the pipeline.
Both pools contained Wild Coho fry which we had some fun trying to catch. Being shallow the fry were very skittish, in the smaller pool the fry were quite large but as soon as they were disturbed off they went with not a one in sight. Rock hiding, the hardest to catch, I guess that evading predators of all kinds their survival skills were well honed. This pool had clear water but still they were hard to see.
After some effort we were able to remove 14 Wild Coho and one Stickleback, we felt we had them all and if any remained then they would have a better chance with more habitat available. The next pool contained around a hundred Wild Coho fry which were easier to catch but were only half the size. This pool was full of Algae with only a small area free and still clear from seepage entering from the bank. After capture we moved them to adjoining pool habitat which with the help of the Beaver remains wetted all summer with good subsurface flow keeping it fresh.
Watching the fry upon release it was evident that they had their preferred schools as they seemed to blend into one then begin to split into separate groups with a few changing their minds and rejoining another school until they settled down and swam over to the inflow in their separate groups where they settled in to the fresh flow.
Next we went up to Swan Lake to remove the fish pipe from the dam.
We launched the boat and with Ed and Al I rowed out to the submerged log where the pipe was tied and anchored . Well I think we did too good a job of submerging the pipe when we put in in Al pulled and pulled , even with the two of us pulling we could not raise the end of the pipe so we let it go and Al retied the rope to the submerged log. I rowed over to the top of the dam which had about another foot added to the top by the Beaver, all fresh mud and grass.
Al and myself disembarked onto the dam and pulled up the outlet end of the pipe. This was way easier than the intake as it just laid down the backside of the dam into the stream-bed. Once we got it up the flow stopped so we coiled the pipe up on top of the dam.
Next year we will have to install it again to allow the fish egress from the Beaver pond. After rowing back and beaching the boat we went and picked berries for awhile then off for tea and coffee.
While having coffee we had a visit from our MP James Lunney who had lobbied for us last year for funding to help clean up the bay of Styrofoam.
Al wanted to present him with one of our T-shirts so Roy went out to his truck and brought a XL for him. He informed us that he had the fisheries minister out with him last week and wanted to bring her with him to help in fry salvage, due to scheduling this was not possible, a opportunity missed to talk with her about the state of the Salmon and give her some first hand knowledge of what communities were doing to preserve our Wild Salmon.
Next month he says he will have one of the fisheries policy advisers out with him so we invited him to bring her to help with fry salvage. We gave him another T-shirt to pass on to the fisheries minister, maybe some publicity with the powers that be will help bring some attention to the important work all the stream keeper groups in BC are doing. Nothing ventured nothing gained.

Saturday, July 11, 2009

The Teddy Bears Picnic.





The day began with the delivery of T-Shirts to Roy while he was at the Lions pancake breakfast at the community hall.
Roy had his truck all decked out with the stream keepers signs on the side for the parade from the Fire Hall to the games field on Powder Point Road. Kaylen was going to meet Roy at the park to help him put the tent and display up. While Roy was putting away a rather large stack or pile of those pancakes I went back down to the railroad crossing to meet the rest of the volunteers to do some fry salvage.
As usual we divided up and went once more from the estuary up and from the highway down . The pools are now very low or non existent, we have taken the bulk of fish from these pools and transported them to the Lake over the past weeks . Today we were able to catch around 150 Wild Coho fry which we released into the big pool at the highway crossing.
This pool extends back upstream the point where surface flow still remains. We expect to be salvaging this reach within a couple of weeks if the present weather pattern sets in for the summer.
The young boys who came with their dad were thrilled to have caught a couple of Trout along with the bulk of the fry that we salvaged today. Cynthia arrived to collect some stream bugs
( invertebrates) to display to the children at the Teddy Bears Picnic teaching them about aquatic life other than just fish. With the help of her son and daughter Cynthia was able to collect a good representation from the pool beneath the highway. Upon completion the older boys wanted to go for a coffee.
After coffee we all went down to the Teddy Bears Picnic to assist with the booth.
Their was a constant floe of families wandering around with curious children eager to see the bugs. One mother had a beautiful Dragonfly pendant hanging on a chain and was quite surprised when it was pointed out that the biggest ugliest bug in the bucket was in fact close to metamorphosing into a beautiful Dragonfly.
Every one was enjoying the day, a couple of hundred happy kids and parents , a smile on every face, fish moved, a perfect day.
Next week we will do another sweep to try and get any more fry then we wait for the big pools to recede. We will be checking further up stream as their are some pools that become isolated from the flow and end up drying, so we will move the fish to wetted habitat adjacent to where we find them.
We always seem to have some activity by the Beavers within the upstream reaches spending their time building small dams forming pools for the summer. In the past they had built a beautiful dam of boulder and cobble with very little wood mainly rock which created a large pool full of Wild Coho fry all summer until winter flows blew it out.