2024 was a banner year for salmon returning to West Vancouver’s creeks, according to the West Vancouver Streamkeepers Society.
Streamkeeper volunteers and West Vancouver Secondary students spent seven weeks in the fall walking the banks of the Capilano River’s tributaries, counting 2,187 returning chum, coho and chinook salmon. Only on a couple occasions in the organization’s history have they seen more than 2,000, and many years are a lot lower – just 107 in 2019.
The group presented the impressive results to District of West Vancouver council on Feb. 24.
“It is the year with the most amount of coho we’ve ever seen in the last 17 years, the second most chinook and the fifth biggest chum year,” Grade 12 student volunteer Oliver Huang told council. “We are seeing more and more salmon coming in throughout the years and this year was very successful.”
The first week of the survey coincided with the Oct. 19 atmospheric river, which devastated human infrastructure on the North Shore. Leslie Pomeroy, the Streamkeepers’ lead volunteer on the program, said they worried it would also provide major disruptions to the salmon at first, wiping out the loose gravel they need to bury their eggs in.
But they quickly found the storm provided a bit of a refresh for the creeks that had seen lower flows in recent years, and in later weeks of the survey, they had the highest counts on record for fish spawning above Highway 1
“After that, we almost immediately saw that gravel had resettled in the creek and provided what would be excellent spawning habitat for the salmon,” she said. “Obviously the water levels were so high that they could get up the creek much more easily. Everything was just easier for them.… The atmospheric river, weirdly enough, even though it was bad for humans, was kind of a gift for salmon.”
Although a healthy return with big numbers is always welcomed, Grade 11 student Ben Brosnan reminded council of the bigger picture.
“By swimming upstream and spawning and dying, they’re essential in our biodiversity, in our nutrient cycles, in our food web. They are the connection. And this is one of the reasons why we do stream keeping. It serves as a proxy for determining the health of our salmon, our streams and our local environments,” he said. “We’re really proud of that number as it just shows what progress we’re making towards preserving our environment."
The West Vancouver Steamkeepers group has carried out numerous habitat rehabilitation projects on creeks around the municipality aimed at giving returning salmon the best possible conditions to spawn in and safe and healthy waterways for the next generation to mature in until they migrate to the ocean.
The yellow reflective vests that the students and volunteers wear while counting fish on the streams has become a recognized and respected symbol with the broader public who see them doing their work, Huang said.
“I think these vests that we wear today are not just a uniform. It really shows that shows to the community that we’re here to make a difference,” he said.
Pomeroy said it would be nice to think a strong return this year will translate to high numbers of hatchlings in the spring and an even better return when they return from the ocean to spawn in four years. But, as they saw in 2024, salmon have a way of keeping us guessing.
“Most seem to have gotten the job done so there is a potential for a good return, but it’s going to also ultimately depend on environmental conditions at the time,” she said. “You just can’t predict it. This is why I keep doing it, because every single year, you see something in the stream you’ve never seen before.… It’s just this little unfolding mystery.”
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