A group of dedicated volunteers is hopeful that salmon will return to Bowker Creek this year. Ian Graeme, the co-chair of the Friends of Bowker Creek Society (FoBC), said the non-profit’s members will be watching the waterway closely for adult chum over the coming weeks. This comes almost three years after the group incubated salmon eggs there as part of an ongoing drive to restore the urban waterway and repopulate it with fish. Graeme said chum typically return three to five years after hatching, which means salmon could swim back between now and mid-December. “It’s a waiting game, but one filled with hope,” he said. Though optimistic, Graeme stressed returns aren’t guaranteed, adding that ocean currents, natural predators, fishing, pathogens, pollution and climate change mean that “typically fewer than one per cent of fertilized eggs survive to adulthood and spawn.” Other factors that could work against returns include the creek’s physical barriers, like culverts, upstream sediment, pollution and highly variable water flows. Those slim odds mean that even one or two chum there would be big news, especially for those dedicated to the waterway’s upkeep. “Returning salmon would further demonstrate the value of urban creeks and help validate two decades of community-based restoration and collaboration – a big symbol of what community action can achieve,” said Graeme. It would also be the first time fish have been recorded in the creek for approximately 70 years, according to FoBC’s director Gerald Harris. He told the Oak Bay News last November that development in Oak Bay’s early years stunted the creek’s fish populations, adding that as of 1914, there are no records of fish upstream of Firefighter’s Park, which sits just a short walk from the waterway’s estuary near the Oak Bay Marina. “Before that, there are records of chum spawning behind what is now Royal Jubilee Hospital and of people catching cutthroat trout from a bridge over the creek somewhere near Hillside Mall,” he said. If chum don’t swim back this year, there’s always hope they will return in 2026 and 2028 from eggs FoBC incubated in 2023 and 2025. Greame said plans are underway to incubate more eggs next year. “Each year’s effort builds knowledge, engages the community and moves the creek one step closer to our goal of re-establishing a self-sustaining salmon run in Bowker Creek,” said Graeme. “This is about more than fish – it’s about restoring hope and connection in our urban landscape.” FoBC works to enhance, restore, protect and raise awareness about Bowker Creek, which meanders through Saanich and Victoria before emptying into the ocean in Oak Bay.
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