From KEEPS:

As 2005 draws to a close, we look back on what has been one of KEEPS’ most successful years ever. We owe a debt of gratitude to our diverse team of Directors, members, and volunteers. Whether you have assisted with a field trip program, or at the hatchery, or helped out with an event or project, your involvement makes KEEPS what it is and makes our community a better place. We also thank our funders, in particular the GVRD Park Partnership program and the District of Maple Ridge, who have been supporting our base level of coordination and our environmental education programs respectively. We have been able to leverage these funds into a number of programs and activities that directly benefit the community.

Merry Christmas, from the cast of the Watershed Road Show (thanks go to GVRD for purchasing most of these critters!)

We won’t look back so fondly on our coho returns for this year. On December 9th, we accompanied a group of high school students to complete our annual inspection of Thornvale Creek, which normally supports 100 or more adult coho spawners. KEEPS uses this watercourse as an indicator of overall watershed coho spawning populations. This year we were disappointed to find zero, and the adjacent sections of Kanaka Creek were virtually devoid of coho. This is in sharp contrast to 2004, when we estimated a return of 200-250 to Thornvale. Since this scenario has occurred throughout the Georgia Basin this year, we suspect that poor ocean conditions are the culprit. The Bell-Irving Hatchery accordingly ceased all broodstock angling efforts due to conservation concerns for the low numbers of wild fish. We estimate that 500 or fewer coho adults returned to the Kanaka watershed this year.

Our environmental education programs are set to resume in early January, and several classes have signed up to be part of the Community Ecosystem Restoration Initiative tree planting program. We have been conducting introductory Watershed Road Show programs for these classes; these sessions focus on climate change and riparian habitats.

Finally, we will be holding our Annual General Meeting Wednesday, January 11th at 7:00 PM at the Maple Ridge Library. Immediately following the boring but necessary stuff we will be showing a slide presentation looking back at KEEPS in 2005.

Merry Christmas!

Summary of Activities

December 1 Watershed Road Show, Riverside Elementary
December 2 Inspection of beaver dam blockages on Dunlop Creek
December 8 Steering Committee meeting
December 9 Fish Reaching Youth program (coho enumeration at Thornvale Creek)
December 12 Meeting: KEEPS / ERA regarding CERI project
December 14 Watershed Road Show, Yennadon Elementary
December 14 KEEPS annual Christmas gathering
December 21 Interview and site visit at Kanaka / 110th re: coho returns
December 24 late evening Sophisticated atmospheric recorders at Bell-Irving Hatchery weather station detect object of unknown origin descending towards Kanaka watershed and Maple Ridge

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