South Burnaby environmentalists are cheering a discovery last week in what they call a “battered” urban creek.
Volunteers spotted fry (baby salmon) in Byrne Creek on Burnaby's south slope on Saturday – a miraculous appearance according to local stream protectors.
“Last year was terrible for Byrne Creek,” said a news release from the Byrne Creek Streamkeepers. “Drought hammered water levels down to a few centimeters in the summer, followed by torrential rains that scoured the creek through street drains during the fall spawning season.”
Volunteers patrolled the creek nearly daily during the spawning run from mid-October through early December. They counted every salmon, and when the spawners died, they evaluated each one they found for species, size, and spawning status.
Spawner returns began several weeks later than usual, and numbers through the season were low.
‘It’s inspiring that the few salmon that returned to spawn in this battered urban creek last autumn succeeded in creating a new generation,” said the news release.
By the 1960s, Byrne Creek was dead and no longer supported fish, say the streamkeepers. The City of Burnaby moved the lower diked portion and installed flood gates that could be opened to give salmon upstream passage in the 1980s. Volunteers began cleaning up the creek and began stocking coho salmon in 1989, and chum salmon in 1997.
The Byrne Creek Streamkeepers was established in 1999 following a toxic spill in 1998 that entered street drains and flowed into the creek killing over 5,000 fish and other wildlife, said the news release. The group continues to monitor the creek, and does environmental restoration and protection work with the support of DFO, and the City of Burnaby's Engineering, Planning and Parks departments.
