If you see divers in the river mouth this week, they’re busy helping restore essential salmon habitat.
Greenways Land Trust along with the Wei Wai Kum First Nation’s Guardian Watchmen and the A’Tlegay Fisheries Society are working in the Campbell River estuary this week until Friday, and again next month from March 4-8. They are transplanting eelgrass plugs into subtidal zones, to create habitat for juvenile salmon. Eelgrass provides feeding and hiding grounds for salmon in intertidal zones before they enter the ocean.
Workers are focused on the Mill Pond area by Baikie Island this spring, once used by sawmills for log booming and storage. The restoration project started last year and is restoring the former industrial site to its natural state.
Baikie Island was purchased by the city and the Nature Conservancy of Canada in 1999. Since then, the former industrial zone has been dismantled and habitat restored. The current multi-million-dollar restoration project in the Mill Pond area is funded through the British Columbia Salmon Habitat and Innovation Fund, with support from the Campbell River Salmon Foundation and Brown’s Bay Resort.
