A section of the Bonaparte River near Ashcroft could soon see a greater number of coho salmon.
The hopeful change is thanks to extensive restoration efforts by the Bonaparte First Nation and B.C. Wildlife Federation, who together renewed the habitat to make it more fish friendly.
Bonaparte First Nation CEO Sean Bennett says before they took action the river’s coho channel was surrounded by rotting fencing, had started to infill, and was getting bogged down with overgrown vegetation. The primary issue was a clogging of the flow of groundwater entering the channel.
This inflow, Bennett says, is vital for juvenile salmon because it keeps the water cooler during the summer and prevents things from freezing during the winter.
“When juvenile coho come out of the gravel in the spring they like to hang around for a while, so they seek out these groundwater refuges. The rivers in the Interior are like a slushee in the winter, so a groundwater channel is like a trip to Mexico for these coho. The channel is essentially thermoregulated,” says Bennett, who did his master’s degree research on the subject and worked for 20 years in restoration at Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
To get that vital groundwater flowing smoothly again, the Bonaparte First Nation and B.C. Wildlife Federation cleared the channel of unnecessary build up and replaced it with willow cuttings, woody debris and boulders. They also extended the length of the channel from 250 to 1,000 metres and built new fencing along it.
Before they started their restoration work, Bennett says they pulled the existing salmon out to keep them safe. At that time, they could only find 12.
The hope is that their work increases that number.
“This project is going to benefit the people in the community. It’s going to increase the number of coho in the channel, which is going to hopefully realize benefits for sports fishermen, commercial fishermen, and First Nations fishermen,” Bennett says.
Bonaparte First Nation and the B.C. Wildlife Federation also plan to install a summer flow gate to allow river water into the channel when needed to flush it out.
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