Debbie Anderson stands on the floating dock at Quatsino Lodge, waiting for the barge. Behind her, a 25-foot-deep net pen, anchored in each corner and lashed to the dock, bobs in the still water. Rain spatters on a dreary Monday morning. Volunteers bustle around the dock getting ready.
91裸聊视频淭he babies are coming, the babies are coming!91裸聊视频� Anderson calls. The barge arrives with three trucks holding 52,000 salmon smolts between them. 91裸聊视频淟IVE FISH91裸聊视频� is emblazoned on the boxes.
These chinook 91裸聊视频� the spawn of 14 females 91裸聊视频� had been set aside at the Marble River Hatchery for special treatment that increases their survival rate by three per cent.
91裸聊视频淚t doesn91裸聊视频檛 sound like a lot, but to a salmon, that91裸聊视频檚 a big deal,91裸聊视频� Anderson says.
The rest of the 500,000 fish are released at the hatchery to find their own way to the ocean. But these smolts 91裸聊视频� older than fry, but not yet adult fish 91裸聊视频� are hand-delivered to an ocean net pen on the other side of the estuary.
In that body of water, where fresh and salt water mix, is where baby fish are most vulnerable. They get sluggish as they acclimatize to salt water and are easy prey for birds. A single family of merganser ducks can can eat 100,000 smolts in one season. These 10 per cent are taken by trucks and a barge straight to the salt water, and then get a month to grow up in safety before they91裸聊视频檒l finally be wild.
The barge is parked next to the pen, where volunteers are ready with buckets and brooms. A six-inch-wide hose was fitted to a valve in the LIVE FISH box.
91裸聊视频淩eady down there?91裸聊视频� Ray Volk calls from his perch on the truck. He91裸聊视频檚 a Quatse River Hatchery staff member who helps Marble River with the fish transfer.
91裸聊视频淏orn ready!91裸聊视频� Anderson answers. She91裸聊视频檚 crouched at the edge of the pen, holding the open end of the hose. Volk lifts the gate and three-inch salmon smolts surge down the hose into their new home.
The disoriented, stressed salmon swim in circles, mimicking their holding pens back at the hatchery. They91裸聊视频檒l need a couple of hours to realize how much space they now have.
The Marble River Hatchery, run by a crew of over 100 volunteers, has been working to restore chinook stock in the Marble River since 1981. A local logger, Bill Dumont, found out that there used to be 10,000 chinook in the river. The year he started the hatchery, there were 500.
91裸聊视频淚f we91裸聊视频檙e going to be part of the problem, let91裸聊视频檚 also be part of the solution,91裸聊视频� he used to say.
By 1997, Anderson had taken on a volunteer managing role at the hatchery. It was autumn, she was standing on a bridge, and saw fish swimming upstream in the river below.
| Chinook smolts are gently shoved out of their transport box, down a hose and into an ocean pen. (Zoe Ducklow) |
91裸聊视频淏ill! Bill, there91裸聊视频檚 fish!91裸聊视频� she called out.
91裸聊视频淗e didn91裸聊视频檛 believe me, but then he looked and said, 91裸聊视频楧ebbie, there91裸聊视频檚 fish! I don91裸聊视频檛 think you understand, there91裸聊视频檚 fish!91裸聊视频� 91裸聊视频� 91裸聊视频淪eventeen years. That91裸聊视频檚 how long it takes to restock a river,91裸聊视频� Anderson said.
Now, after 39 years later, between 5,000 and 7,000 chinook swim back up the Marble River to spawn.
91裸聊视频淚f we get to 10,000, I guess it will be time to close the hatchery. But then again, if we keep fishing, maybe we need to keep helping,91裸聊视频� Anderson mused.
Marble River flows north into Quatsino Sound on Vancouver Island91裸聊视频檚 west coast, drawing from a 518-square-kilometre watershed. It was formerly used as a water source for Island Copper Mine in Port Hardy, closed in 1995, and the pulp mill in Port Alice, which ceased operating in 2015.
Water levels were low when those operations were using millions of cubic metres of water a day, but have since rebounded to the point where fish ladders the hatchery had installed are unnecessary.
| Releasing salmon smolts into their all-inclusive resort in Quatsino Sound. (Zoe Ducklow) |
Anderson and the other volunteers, including staff from the Quatse Hatchery, stand and watch the fish, mesmerized as their colour comes back, and by the swirls and patterns they form, swimming in various clockwise groups.
With luck, these 52,000 smolts will add to the number of returning salmon in the Marble, and the hatchery team will be back next year, doing it all over again.
Do you have something to add to this story or something else we should report on? Email:
zoe.ducklow@blackpress.ca.
Like us on and follow us on .
