Monday, January 17, 2011
Stream keepers The Log Artical for Febuary 2011
Well we missed the deadline for the December issue, I wrote the article but forgot to send it in. Duh/ Yes I did get in trouble from readers who look forward to reading the column so this year I have to be more diligent.
Over the holidays we were out every day except Xmas day and New Years day being that they were on Saturdays one of our regular days.
Well over the past month we have been mainly walking the watersheds observing wildlife and the changing forest.
All the Wild Salmon eggs are tucked nicely into the gravel beds, incubating away as the fresh mountain waters wash over them.
I found some good Oyster Mushrooms growing on old Alder logs along the stream banks, excellent eating. [Hmm-Wild Smoked Salmon and Wild Oyster mushroom’s, stop before they beat down the door at suppertime.]
Had a discussion over the past month about the sexual maturity of Salmon and how important it is for the Salmon to reach sexual maturity unhindered. Salmon in order to achieve their goal of passing on their evolutionary adaptive genes to the next generation need to be able to complete their life cycle. What this means is selecting their mates as they reach maturity and going through their own courting rituals before spawning and fertilizing. By selecting their own mate this ensures that the survival of the species continues. Science is catching up to nature in the understanding of fish behaviour; no longer are fish just fish. Salmon are able to evolve from generation to generation faster than us humans ensuring their adaptation to their ever-changing habitat from cycle to cycle. Interruption of this process can do untold damage to thousands of years of adaptation, which could result in the loss of priceless genetics if all fish become hybrids. Any gardeners out their knows that the same holds true for plants, try saving the seeds of a hybrid hoping that next year your plants will turn out the same. That is why you must buy new seeds every year to ensure getting the results you want, which is why most serious gardeners try to save their own seeds from what are called heirloom varieties. Last week [at the time of this writing] I heard the most eloquent and informed talk on Salmon I have ever heard even from those who purport to know all there is to know of Salmon. Check out the CBC Ideas web site for one of the most enlightening talks by the champion of Salmon Alexandra Morton entitled Saving Salmon; it should be available as a pod cast soon hopefully or for purchase as a CD.
Over the coming months we will be having another stream riparian garbage cleanup, this time in the upper watershed of Knarston Creek adjacent to the recently logged woodlot at the end of the road beyond Normarel rd. [I am reluctant to use its name in print as I have been told by my Salish friends that the current name is considered not PC and is actually a derogatory term]
Most of the garbage lining the old logging road has been removed by Gregsons during the logging of the woodlot.
What remains is lying off in the bush and down the bank of the creek; again we have every kind, old truck bodies, stoves etc. Luckily none is in the creek proper. Talking with John Gregson before the holidays he has offered any assistance he can in this cleanup. So look out for the date which I hope can be arranged for some time in March. As stream Keepers we are also making plans to do some restoration of the heavily eroded banks at the site of the old bridge, this has been made worse by the traffic from 4x4’s and ATV’s, Gregsons has placed rocks and gates to restrict this traffic which has helped to excluded them from using the road and crossing the stream. Most importantly this is a source of water quality for the entire fish habitat downstream all the way to the beach and beyond as the fresh water affects the foreshore habitat also.
Concerns are being raised about the continuing trend to place riprap along the foreshore, which has far reaching impacts on foreshore health and habitat. The trend is to see all beach erosion as a bad thing but erosion is a natural process for the foreshore and throwing rip rap around as a panacea results in major disruption of endangered foreshore habitat for all forage fish who use this crucial habitat to spawn in. We lose the foreshore habitat and eventually we lose the Salmon as these forage fish are important food for rearing Salmon fry as they venture out into the Ocean.
Anchoring drift wood logs along the foreshore will control erosion naturally by dissipating the wave energy while allowing for the natural drift of foreshore material along the beach. Some erosion will continue but without the downward scour created by riprap and concrete structures with the resultant loss of beach slope. Imagine going down to the beach one day to lay on the beach to sun bath and finding all the beach rip rapped and no beach slope to lay on, in fact no low tide beach due to its erosion leaving only a narrow strip of large cobble and boulders.
Hope to see some of you out for the cleanup in March, time and date will be in the next issue of the log in March.
Eat more seafood and live a healthier life, my Salish friends have a very good saying ; “When the tide is out the table is set”.
Best Fishes John Dunn
Stream Keepers The Log Artical November 2010
The past month has been a little on the wet side with rain on most days we were out and about. The last few weeks we have been walking the creeks looking for the returning Wild Salmon. This year so far we have seen poor returns of Wild Chum Salmon on all the streams visited from Bloods through to Craig. The returns of Wild Coho have been overall better than previous years and we still have the late runs to show up. These runs of late Wild Coho return well into December. Some speculation is that these late fish are the remnants of the true Wild Coho and seem to be overall a smaller fish. On the 6th of November we had a class of home school high school students out for some field experience for their biology class. First thing we did was to give a talk on the importance of the riparian zone while they gave a hand to plant some trees. Next we walked downstream to the Bears fishing camp, which gave the opportunity to talk about the importance of nutrient transport from the ocean to the forest by the Bear and all the other animals that benefit from the returning fish. Though the amount of fish being carried into the forest may seem small when compared to the expanse of the forest vital nutrient exchange takes place mainly along the stream banks. When leaves and needles fall into the stream and along the banks these nutrients are slowly released back into the streams over the winter providing nutrients for all kinds of bugs [invertebrates] both in the stream and along the streamside. By the time the young of the spring hatch out of the gravel the streams are teeming with life providing rich feeding grounds. We were hoping that the heaver rains of November would bring more Chums but it seems that the few we have had return may be it for this year. Down at the famous Gold stream the tourists have not seen the amount of Chum that usually returns. From observations locally even the two hatcheries at little and Big Qualicum Rivers have been low this year.
This year the commercial fishery in Johnstone Straits was closed early due to a lack of returning Chum. This does not bode well for 4 years down the line but we never know from year to year how many will return, if ocean conditions are good we may see more show up.
After the unexpected run of sockeye this year there is a lot of speculation as to why such a big run returned this year after so many lean years. Some research attributes the great abundance of food production in the North Pacific due to an increase of terrestrial nutrients from the Kasatochi volcano way off in the Aleutian Islands in 2008. The ensuing iron rich ash cloud deposited in the Ocean resulted in huge algae and plankton blooms providing rich feeding for the Sockeye.
Up on the central coast north of the Island some concern is being expressed for the health of the Grizzly Bear populations not being able to find enough Chums to fatten up on as they go into winter hibernation. This also will hold for our Black Bear locally if they cannot get enough fish to gain that extra fat required for healthy hibernation especially for the pregnant females.
We wish everyone a great holiday season coming up and we will be out walking the streams right through the holidays though I expect we may cancel our Saturday meeting on the 25th, this will be the only Saturday during the year we will miss.
Happy New Year and do not forget that the winter solstice takes place on the 21st of December. If anyone has a live tree and want to donate it for streamside planting we would be happy to plant it for you along one of the streams.Stream Keepers The Log Artical March 2010
Since last month the rains have continued on and off with a big downpour last night
(15th Feb) Down in the estuary yesterday there was no water flowing over the banks but this morning it was just starting to slow down and flow back to the stream from the field as the tide dropped. We were down planting trees again; taking advantage of the nice weather we were all down to our T-shirts wishing we had brought deck chairs. The Red Wing Blackbirds were all chirping away and Ducks coming and going with a big Red Tailed Hawk cruising the estuary looking for lunch. Even though we just wanted to take in all this sun and nature we did manage to plant 38 Spruce Trees bringing the total for this year so far to 106. These trees all varied from 18inches to 4 ft tall. While planting I wandered into a small area we had planted several years ago and found 5 nice Spruce trees, nice and bushy with lots of healthy growth, if all the ones we planted do as good their will be a nice stand of Spruce in a couple of hundred years. In years past we took all kinds of advice ( Foresters, Biologists etc) as to what trees would do well in the estuary and over the past years we have planted hundreds of Fir and Cedar tree plugs with the vast majority falling to the Beaver, Deer, Mice and Voles chewing off the bark. The only ones that were left alone were the Spruce except for one Spruce planted way down in the Nootka Rose which a Buck has used to rub his antlers on, the tree survived and is still doing well. This area gets flooded with tidal waters during high tides and big rain events so salt tolerance may have something to do with how only the Spruce do well. We have a few Cedar trees growing but they have a tough time with the Deer and Beaver who seem to love chewing Cedar trees. We have a family of bank Beavers trying to survive but have to outwit the trapper who seems to make his appearance once the Beaver get too close to the bridge, usually just a small 1 to 2 foot dam to try and impound enough water to last over the summer months and is flushed out by the first big rain event of the fall.
We were up on Bonnel last week checking out the small school of Wild Coho fry that has been hanging out in this one small piece of off channel habitat. After one of the floods the pool now has a sand bottom from the back eddy depositing its load as the flood roared downstream. Hope fully any more over wintering fry will have found good refuge like this and survived the floods. It will be interesting to see how many Wild Chum return next cycle (4 years), we had a good return this fall with Wild Chum spawning all the way up to the power line. Next year they will be able to move as far as the falls due to the big logjam opening up during one of the floods. Usually just Wild Coho went above the Jam to spawn, next fall we will be able to see how many Wild Chum make it up their. Over the coming months we will be losing the only intact watersheds on a tributary of Snaw Naw As (Nanoose) Creek due to logging. This will affect the water quality for all downstream habitat and have a long-term effect on the overall health of Snaw new As Creek.
On the positive side over the past week all governments have decided to change the name of Georgia Strait to the Salish Sea. Many years ago we put the name Snaw Naw As Creek on the signs denoting Wild Salmon habitat on Nanoose Creek. We would like to put all the correct names of the creeks on the signs but are having a hard time finding out what the streams were called before colonization. So if anyone has any names on old maps or if any one can remember what they were called before they were named after the early settlers let us know and we will add them to the present names.