As winter sinks its grips into the lower mainland of BC with unusual ferocity, it appears that the salmon spawning season has ended for southeast Burnaby's Byrne Creek for another year. Autumn is the most exciting time of the year for Byrne Creek Streamkeepers, for the return of salmon to this struggling urban waterway in the autumn is the most visible evidence that our efforts to protect and enhance the watershed are not in vain.
This year the returns were poor -- at around 35 chum and coho we saw only about a third of the over 90 spawners recorded in 2004 -- our best year since volunteers began to rehabilitate the once-dead creek about 20 years ago. It was a wild, wet and snowy year though, so we suspect we missed salmon that we couldn't see in the high, dirty water, or that were flushed away in the heavy rains before we could find their carcasses. A good sign is that we saw at least 10 redds (nests of eggs) in the spawning channel, well up from sightings in the last few years.
You may scoff at these numbers, but seeing as only about a third of the creek remains in a somewhat natural state, and the rest is piped or ditched, any positive results are to be celebrated.
Streamkeepers patrolled the creek almost daily as the weather allowed, and though past records indicate the spawners peter out by mid to late December, we continued into the New Year, hoping...
We have lots of other activities to keep us busy until once again we begin stalking the creek for the first spawners next October, but we'll miss them. They surmount incredible odds from birth to going out to sea, to returning to spawn and die, and we appreciate every one that makes it back to "our" small, battered creek.
Posted by Paul at January 4, 2007 09:44 PM