Locals’ hopes that chum salmon will return to Bowker Creek this month have been put on ice until next year, according to Gerald Harris, the director of a non-profit called the Friends of Bowker Creek Society.
“The observation crew for adult chum returns can wrap up observations for this year,” Harris wrote in a Nov. 27 email to members of the organization’s volunteer staff, who work to enhance, restore and protect Bowker Creek.
The creek, which meanders through Saanich, Victoria and Oak Bay, where it empties into the ocean near the Glenlyon Norfolk School, was once home to trout and salmon, before development in Oak Bay’s early years stunted its fish populations.
“Before that, there are records of chum spawning behind what is now Royal Jubilee Hospital and of people catching cutthroat trout from a bridge over the creek somewhere near Hillside Mall," Harris told Black Press earlier this month.
In the hopes of repopulating the creek, the Friends of Bowker Creek Society incubated chum eggs there – a species of fish well-suited to the Bowker's current conditions. The roe came from the Goldstream Hatchery, and the fully-grown fish that develop from these eggs are always expected to return to the same place they were incubated in four years later.
Earlier this year, however, Harris miscalculated when the Bowker fish had been incubated, thinking they had been placed there in January and February of 2021. The director recently confirmed that they were actually incubated in January and February of 2022, which means the fish are expected to return next November, not this one.
Harris apologized to the Friends of Bowker Creek Society volunteers, who spent hours monitoring the creek for signs of chum.
“I am very sorry for having recruited you all into the daily observations for the past month and a half," he wrote in his email. “You have done such a great job of keeping eyes on the creek.”
Despite this miscalculation, the organization's diligent observation of Bowker has resulted in the discovery of two coho salmon – possibly the first in 70 years, according to Harris.
“I suspect that many salmon may have strayed up the creek over the past several decades, but nobody saw them because people haven’t been regularly and carefully observing, as you have done this year,” wrote the director, adding that he hopes for support from a similarly dedicated outfit of salmon lovers next year. “I can only hope that as good a crew will turn out next October/November to observe for returning adults."
