Return of the Dead, Dying, Mangled, Mutilated, and Rotting
No, I’m not making a zombie movie.
Volunteers around the mobile holding tank
I am bringing back spawner surveys for Stoney Creek, together, of course, with the Stoney Creek Salmon Stalkers. In 2007 we definitively counted 31 spawning coho salmon returning to east Abbotsford’s Stoney Creek, and quite likely several more that we couldn’t verify. In 2008, we were AWOL. MIA. Showing gross dereliction of duty. Clean and dry.
This year, the Stalkers are back. Weekly, or semi-weekly, we’ll be tramping up Stoney Creek, counting how many spawning chum, coho, and chinook (now there’s a pipe dream) have made it all the way upriver to Stoney. To speak no more of this, a la Peter Donaldson. To mate. To die.
You’re welcome to join us. Requested in fact, even if it’s only for one session, or two, that would help. Will you see salmon? No guarantee of that, unfortunately, but there are guarantees. Fresh, crisp Autumn air. Exercise. Getting to know one of your local creeks. Seeing other wildlife. So join us. Tramp up and down Stoney Creek a few times. Write down what you see, and we’ll get a second year of salmon data for Stoney Creek.
You might have heard that our salmon stocks aren’t doing so well. 9/10ths of our sockeye disappeared this summer. It’s true that coho and chum aren’t sockeye. But they’re still important. They teach us about the cycle of life. Our large predators, bears, eagle, and the small ones too, the larvae and insects, feed on them. Even the trees and plants are nourished by our salmon. They tell us how our ocean is doing. Whether it’s able to produce food for our priceless salmon stocks, or whether we’re overfishing it, or trashing it. In this circle of life, the Stoney Creek Salmon Stalkers will play a small role. One that hopefully enhances community awareness of fragile salmon stocks, and encourages responsible lifestyle choices that both strengthen the community and are salmon-friendly.
We’re working under the auspices of the Abbotsford Ravine Park Salmonid Enhancement Society, in close collaboration with the Fraser Valley Regional Watersheds Coalition. The ARPSES actually started when a guy who had grown up in the Clayburn Watershed, of which Stoney Creek is a part, returned from military service, and noticed that the creek didn’t play host to nearly as many salmon as it had when he was a child. So he started a salmon hatchery to reverse this trend, and every year the hatchery now releases thousands of salmon fry into fragile, urbanized Stoney Creek. Is it working?
We won’t know unless you join us and help us find out.
