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Qualicum Beach Streamkeepers

SALMON COUNT ON BEACH CREEK IS A HIT!

Over 200 coho salmon smolt were netted, measured and moved to safety as part of the Memorial Golf Club and Town of Qualicum Beach project to remove sediment buildup in two caissons above the irrigation pond on Beach Creek.

The caissons were installed several years ago to reduce the amount of sediment flowing into the large pond, and the build up of material meant that the fish in the pond needed to be moved upstream before heavy equipment could be used. A dozen strong team of Qualicum Beach Streamkeeper volunteers led by fisheries biologist Dave Clough used seining nets to find and catalogue the fish in the pond.  Two hundred and thirty coho, ten cutthroat trout and five hundred stickleback were captured and carried by buckets to safety.

The high numbers of coho confirm that Beach Creek is a healthy and productive salmon stream in the centre of Qualicum Beach.

FISH IN GRANDON CREEK

One of the most frequent questions we encounter is the one asking whether there are really any wild fish in Grandon Creek, since there never seem to be any visible, even in the summer when the streamflow is so low.

Our water monitoring team does check for fish, and recently dropped a camera into the concrete basin at the lower end of the creek and the resulting June 29, 2024 video shows many fish, including coho and cutthroat trout, happily scooting around in a deep and cool pool of water