It’s looking like a banner year on the Quinsam and Campbell Rivers for salmon returns, according to hatchery numbers.
Quinsam Hatchery Manager Ed Walls says they’re expecting more than one million pink salmon this year, representing a remarkable survival rate of more than six per cent, double what’s typical.
Even more surprising is how well coho salmon are doing. The hatchery typically releases about 400,000 each year and are seeing unusually good returns this fall.
“We release the coho as a much larger fish, because they’re in freshwater for a whole year and a half,” he says. “We see typically the survival is around two or three per cent on those normally. I’m not sure what the numbers are going to be this year, but it’s going to be in the six or seven per cent [range] similar to the pinks.”
Chum salmon, which are the last salmon species to return in fall, are also doing well, and he says Puntledge and Qualicum hatcheries are reporting similar increased returns.
Walls says it’s not clear why returns are so good, but something in the open ocean, where all salmon spend most of their lives growing and feeding, must be working in their favour.
He says the good returns will being positive benefits for bears and birds that eat the fish, and will increase the nutrients in the watershed for aquatic life and the rainforest around the rivers and streams.
