Salmon return after century-long absence
Trapped fish placed in water reservoir that last had sockeye in 1905
Jack Keating
The Province
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
It's been more than a century since sockeye salmon regularly ventured up the Coquitlam River into Coquitlam Lake.
But with a little help from the Kwikwetlem First Nation, Watershed Watch, B.C. Hydro and Metro Vancouver officials, two sockeye have returned to the lake for the first time since the river was dammed in 1905.
A trap placed at the base of the dam about two years ago caught its first sockeye last week -- 3.59 kilograms and 681/2 centimetres long. It was taken by truck and released into the lake Friday.
A second sockeye appeared in the trap Friday and was also taken to the lake and released.
"We're ecstatic," said Craig Orr, executive director of Watershed Watch. "It's been 103 years. We had a male and female in the lake. It's a start. And we're going to try and devise a better plan on getting more through the dam."
Glen Joe, the Kwikwetlem First Nation's fisheries manager, released the sockeye into the lake. "It is only the very beginning," he said. "Hopefully, we will have more come back."
Metro Vancouver has an agreement with B.C. Hydro, which owns most of the water rights for Coquitlam Lake, to withdraw water each year for drinking water.
Metro Vancouver agreed to let the sockeye back into the lake after four years of studies about impacts on water quality. "We don't see any obstacles to this current small-scale reintroduction," said Metro Vancouver spokesman Bill Morrell.
"At the end of the day, our responsibility is to ensure drinking-water quality. So while we fully support these kinds of undertakings and our CEO [Johnny Carline] has been very clear that he thinks this is a fabulous program and an entirely appropriate thing to do, at some point we have to think about what would be the impact, if in fact, this return was revved back up to what it was pre-1905."
Kwikwetlem means "red fish up the river," said Orr, environmental advisor to the Kwikwetlem First Nation. "It's sort of restoring their namesake for the river."
jkeating@png.canwest.com© The Vancouver Province 2008
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