May 03, 2005
Coho Smolt Release
A class of grade 4/5 kids, Byrne Creek Streamkeepers and our DFO community adviser Maurice released 3,000 - 4,000 coho smolts (yearlings) into Byrne Creek today. The kids were great, as was their teacher, Angela Dodd.
Here's Maurice checking out what the kids had learned about salmon while I flank the herd :-).
After everyone had left, Yumi and I went to the settling pond to see if the coho were moving downstream, and sure enough, there were hundreds of them coming down to join remnants of the chum fry that we released last week.
The coho would pile up at the bottom of the culvert running under Southridge Dr., and then, sensing the danger of the open area ahead, they'd mill about, gradually gaining the numbers and the courage to make the dash into the settling pond. Unfortunately, as we sat there watching them, trouble appeared in the form of a somewhat scrawny heron.
It sailed right in and landed in the pond just four or five meters away from us, and immediately began whacking smolts.
The heron gobbled 13 smolts in less than ten minutes while we watched with a combination of fascination and horror. Should we have shooed it away? What a call to make. We let nature run its course...
Here it's got one nearly ready to slide down its gullet.
Run coho, run!
Posted by Paul at May 3, 2005 08:53 PM