A group of stream-keepers from Peninsula Streams and Shorelines, Friends of Bowker Creek and representatives from Goldstream Hatchery, planted 18,350 chum eggs into two incubation boxes in Bowker Creek on Jan. 8. Since then, volunteers have been visiting, peeking into the boxes regularly, taking the temperature and watching water quality.
“It’s been this combination of happy and sad for us,” Friends of Bowker member Gerald Harris told the Oak Bay News.
“Right through that whole period of time until about a week ago we were seeing what looked like these very healthy eggs and very healthy little alevin because we’re able to peek in and see what’s going on in there. … Fingers and toes crossed it was going so well.”
Just after the cold, dry period in February, the region saw heavy rainfall, stirring up turbidity in the water. Clouded with sediment and high water meant no looking inside the incubation boxes. Checking in on them two days later – days before the planned March 1 release – the volunteers suddenly faced a sea of silver–belly–up baby salmon.
“It didn’t look as good, we thought we were seeing some mortality in there,” Harris said. A professional who volunteers with the organization went down to assess the situation on Feb. 27, and realizing they had a severe fish kill, immediately released the rest of the brood.
“When we first pulled out the trays all you see is these dead fish there and what’s deceptive about that is the dead fish turned silver side up, whereas the living ones are still dark side up,” Harris said.
That first glimpse of a swarm of silver was disheartening but belied what lay beneath.
“You’re just confronted with all these dead fish. Only as we were emptying these things, we realized that we’re pretty confident we have at least 50 per cent survival.”
An educated guess is that 9,000 to 10,000 living alevin launched into the waterway that day. An alevin – a newly hatched fish with its yolk sac still attached – becomes a fry once the sac is consumed. The small fish could hang out in the waterway for up to a month before moving on, making water quality even more critical.
The Friends of Bowker Creek Society supports the restoration and enhancement of the waterway guided by the vision and goals of the regionally-developed Bowker Creek Initiative – a partnership that includes municipalities.
With the cause of death unknown, the group called on Oak Bay Public Works to look into the cloudy water incidents over recent weeks. They learned the district had already been alerted by another resident and were looking into the source.
“He visited the creek, connected with volunteers and saw the situation in the incubation box. He went right to work looking to identify the source of the pollution,” Harris said. “We really feel we are a part of a team.”
Oak Bay staff looked at four locations throughout the community, the district confirmed. They determined the source was coming from outside of the municipality but didn’t locate the exact source.
Salmon fry are sensitive to high turbidity which can be caused by fine sediments introduced from construction activity or bank erosion. The Friends of Bowker hope folks in Oak Bay, Saanich and Victoria – where the waterway runs – will be extra aware of what they send into the watershed.
This first year using incubating boxes marked a return of eggs to the creek. In 2022 and 2023 the groups planted eggs in a rocky bed built into the waterway, but a poor Goldstream River salmon return in 2023 meant many groups the hatchery supports, including Friends of Bowker, did not receive eggs for incubation in 2024.
Despite losing some of this year's fish, Harris figured they had the design right for the site.
“We’ve built boxes that can work in Bowker Creek,” Harris said. “We believe we’re on a good course. We can illustrate to DFO (Fisheries and Oceans Canada) for this year that we’re using a good system and Bowker Creek is still a good project.”
