Salmon Steward

thE first fivE revisiting the originAl Projects to 24 2017 psf.ca I started sport fishing back in the mid- '70s. That's where my passion for British Columbia salmon began. I was in the marine insurance business back then and met quite a few commercial fishers. They taught me a lot about what was happening to our coastal salmon. Then one day in the early-'90s, I bumped into a group of friends on a ferry ride who told me about the work of the Pacific Salmon Foundation. I did some investigating and was impressed. dedicAtion MAKes A little donAtion go A long wAy Who cares about salmon? Who: Seymour Salmonid Society Where: Seymour River, North Vancouver What: $13,000 for new hatchery equipment "The original site was basically a trailer,°one°rearing pond and an incubation area. It was set up as a hands- on learning facility for BCIT fisheries students. Then in 1987, the Society was created to take over the hatchery," Society manager Brian Smith explains. " When I started 23 years ago, we didn't even have°drinking water or washroom facilities°for sta¦°or volunteers°and we were releasing about 20,000 fry per year. Ian Angus VOLUNTEER DIRECTOR, PACIFIC SALMON FOUNDATION BOARD Ian Angus (right) helped honour long-serving Victoria-area community advisor Tom Rutherford at a recent Foundation fundraising gala. Community advisors work as key conduits between volunteer streamkeepers and Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO). The Foundation wasn't interested in finding fault, but in facilitating and bringing partners together: volunteers, funders and scientists. They were finding ways for those people to work together to bring back the salmon stream by stream. But it was the volunteers who really inspired me, and how the Foundation helped them do more for salmon habitat. Being in Vancouver, my way of contributing was by participating on some of the Foundation's committees. I helped raise money and for the last 12 years I have been a member of the Community Salmon Program review committee. Each year, we have about 150 applications to review. The committee is made up of three Foundation board members and three knowledgeable independents. We pore over all applications and make recommendations to the board for approval. One of the biggest bonuses to Today, the Seymour facility incubates about two million eggs annually. Who: Chehalis Indian Band Where: Chehalis River, Harrison What: $4,000 grant to purchase a new hatchery generator "1987 goes back a long way for Sts'ailes [formerly Chehalis Indian Band]. The Band was only a couple of years into having moved the Band o®ce from the chief 's home into a log building built by the community to house a handful of sta¦," says Sts'ailes Development Corporation's CEO Robert Lagasse. "Chief Bill Williams had begun a small hatchery behind his home, referred to°as Smokehouse Slough Hatchery. Within a few years, DFO built the Chehalis River Hatchery o¦-reserve and the Smokehouse Slough Hatchery was shut down." Now we incubate about two million eggs annually, our fish releases are in the hundreds of thousands, and our facilities have become a hub for salmon education and enhancement on the North Shore. "And at every step along the way, the Pacific Salmon Foundation has been our first source of funding – helping us grow our capacity, develop new education programs and deal with disasters like the rock slide in 2014 that is still devastating our watershed. And I simply can't overstate the importance of volunteers. We only°have three full-time sta¦, but we have more than 500 volunteers that we depend on. "Like the Foundation, we're celebrating our 30th anniversary this year. Our first priority is to re-establish a migration route through the rock slide for both adult and juvenile salmonids. The lack of spawning adults in the upper water shed has had a devastating e¦ect on the wildlife that depend on the salmon as a food source. Eagles and bears were once a common sight at the hatchery prior to the rock slide; now we haven't seen a bear in more than two years. But 30 years from now, if we've done our job right, the wildlife will have returned and I will be unemployed!" Former chief Willie Charlie (C) chairs the Harrison Salmon Stronghold working group.

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