The West Vancouver Streamkeepers Society is celebrating after chinook salmon have begun spawning in two creeks they've never been known to visit before.
Volunteers recently spotted dozens of chinooks in Hadden Creek and Brothers Creek, both of which join the Capilano River.
"We have pretty good records over the years about what normally comes into the streams," said Streamkeepers president John Barker.
"This year we've had a good run of chum, a good run of coho, everything's going according to Hoyle. Everything's just fine and all of a sudden, bang, in come all these chinook."
Barker contacted staff at the federally operated Capilano Salmon Hatchery, who have since gone to collect DNA samples to confirm the salmon were of the same stock that typically come from Capilano River.
Returning salmon sometimes stray from their home waters, but not to the extent we're seeing this year, Barker said.
The prevailing theory is that the late-returning chinooks decided to avoid the Capilano River after a series of mudslides north of Capilano Lake in late October resulted in "off the charts" turbidity in the water.
"The water quality would be very poor and you'd have to assume the chinook have thought, 'We're not going up into that water. We'll take the first opportunity,' and they turned into Brothers Creek," he said. "The coincidence of those two events is too strong to ignore."
Barker said there should be enough successful spawning that there will be a naturally returning chinook stock to Brothers and Hadden creeks in three or four years.
"You just have to believe that when we're getting fish of that number in there, it's going to be a successful spawning event. We know that stream has great habitat and it produces really well for chum salmon and coho," he said.
"We're going to have a run of chinook from their work and their spawning.
That's something we've never seen before.
It's a phenomenal event for West Vancouver and our streams."
No one from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans' communications department responded to a request for an interview by North Shore News' deadline.
