8,000 Chum eggs harvested in Basil Creek

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Around 8,000 Chum Salmon eggs were harvested in Basil Creek, Cortes Island, on Friday, October 29th.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), the Friends of Cortes Island Streamkeepers (FOCI) and the Klahoose Hatchery were hoping to collect up to 40,000 eggs.

DFO Community Advisor Stacey Larsen said that, if enough Chum return, there may be another chance to collect eggs this week.

“The opportunity to use genetically local stock and get Chum salmon back into that creek is what this is all about,” explained Cortes Island Streamkeeper Cec Robinson. “All of the salmon returns that we get on Cortes are just a shadow of what they once were. Including here at Basil Creek, which is the strongest run we get by far, but it still could be much greater.”

He said the natural runs in Cortes Island’s other creeks were ‘almost gone.’

There was no time for interviews once the operation commenced but, as the team was assembling, Robinson explained who they were:

Byron Harry, the new Klahoose Fisheries Officer, “his dad had that job in the past and was well respected and appreciated for the work that he did.”
Dave Ewart, former manager of the Quinsam River hatchery in Campbell River, who “keeps trying to retire from DFO but they won’t let him go.” Robinson added that Ewart owns property on Cortes and is a real mentor for the streamkeepers.
Five volunteer streamkeepers.

Larsen, DFO’s community advisor from the area stretching from Oyster Bay north to Sayward, and including Cortes and the other Discovery Islands, joined us just after this.

Ewart, Harry and the Streamkeepers put nets across the stream, to stop the salmon from escaping. Then they went after the trapped fish with scoop nets. Ewart was especially adept at differentiating females that are full of eggs from those that are already spawned out. Most of the salmon seemed to be released, but at the end of the operation four dead females and five males were laid out on the bank.

They were milked for eggs and sperms, respectively, and their bodies returned to the stream.

Cruel as this may seem, the salmon had returned to Basil Creek to spawn and die. Larsen explained that, depending how long they have been in the creek, the remainder of their natural lives would have been measured in days or weeks.

Robinson explained that as a result of the human intervention, 80% to 90% of the eggs being harvested would survive - instead of 5% to 10%.

Photo credit: Klahoose Fisheries Officer Byron Harvey scooping up Chum Salmon in Basil Creek - Roy L Hales photo