Well let's talk about more problems of the Coquitlam. We are lucky to even see chum in the river....any fish at all. Last year, BC hydro was working on the Buntzen/Coquitlam Line, releasing water for over a month straight on and off, with the river flowing over 2-3ft than normal. Now this was during the spawning of the chum. Hmmm, I wonder how many chum are going to return in 2011? Chances are none. Last year there were a select few chum in the river....a few in the river last year that spawned...and those few that spawned were screwed over because of the high water.
Another thing is the amount of fish released from the hatchery. There are 30,000 coho in the 2 tubs at the hatchery (15,000 in each). This is definately not a large amount of fish for a release expecting a huge run of fish back. Add up the survival rate of a release. Around 1% survival rate. Now add on the silt, mud, pollution, and garbage dumped into the river EVERY SINGLE DAY. The survival rate for the fish drops considerably lower.
Now, add on fishing pressure to this system. Oh, and add on all the snaggers and bonkers down at kingsway and what do you get? A fragile system than literally cannot sustain Shi* like that.
A few times every year, us at Riverside have river clean-ups. You would not believe the shi* we pick up from the river. I have already counted 4 shopping carts on the river bottom from kingsway and 200yrds down river.
Oh, one last thing. The steelhead program was shut down 5 years ago. Due to this, the hatchery is not expecting any steelhead back this year. We've tried to get the program back this year, but so far it looks like it's not going to happen anytime soon.
You choose