News Article
February 2004 |
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Restoring the Puntledge
Larry Peterson - Puntledge River Restoration Committee
After decades of closure, the Puntledge
River was open to sport fishing for the third year in
a row. The fishery closed at the end of last month,
but during the season, which started October 1, there
were 12 to 30 cars at the Condensory Bridge every day.
One day in October, four motorhomes,
each carrying two Italian fishers, found their way to
the Puntledge. One day last month, four Japanese visitors
roamed its banks.
The abundance of fish and the generous
but reasonable opportunities to retain coho, chum and
Chinook were strokes of good fortune and good management.
So how has all this come about?
Many factors and many people played
have played roles. First, about six years ago, the Courtenay
Fish and Game Club, the local chapter of the Steelhead
Society and other concerned citizens staged a large
rally to insist on a predator control program for seals
in the lower river. These seals were taking up semi-permanent
residency in the inter-tidal zone and intercepting adult
spawners on their way up-river. More importantly, the
seals were feasting on young, downstream migrants on
their way out to sea. Over half of all Puntledge River
smolt production was being intercepted and consumed.
Secondly, the Puntledge River Restoration Committee
reformed and began lobbying politicians, provincial
and federal fisheries and BC Hydro to initiate and carry
out a revitalization program which would see stepped-up
fish production so there would be enough bodies out
there to prejudice the odds towards survival instead
of against it.
The second half of the equation was
habitat improvement so that fish had abundant areas
to spawn and rear and suitable water flows to guarantee
efficiency of spawning and rearing.
Over the past five years, the Puntledge
River Hatchery staff have been pumping out coho, Chinook,
pinks and chums to the point that salmon production
has almost returned to historical levels.
BC Hydro has paid for and worked with
the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) for side-channel
construction and gravel placement at such places as
Bull Island (a semi-natural, $200,000 project just upstream
of Stotan Falls), the power-line area and the Courtenay
game side-channel.
Altogether, about $227,000 has
been spent on restoration.
BC Hydro has guaranteed flows which
are favorable for fish and provincial fisheries has
both a cutthroat and steelhead program in their early
stages. There is a spirit of cooperation which is showing
obvious positive results.
There is also another part to the effort.
Ocean survival in the past four years has been excellent
with subsiding of El Nino and the rich upwellings of
nutrients in the North pacific.The
impact on salmon species has been pronounced and positive.
Whether conditions are also starting to favor steelhead
and cutthroat is still unknown, and all we can do is
continued to plan and work and hope. We also need to
get an estuary complexing study, still in the planning
stages, under way.
We are not there yet. Much work and
good fortune are still needed, but the Puntledge is
on its way to once again becoming a world-class river.
Meanwhile, funding applications for
monitoring Bull Island and further restoration on other
parts of the Puntledge have been submitted to BC Hydro’s
Bridge Coastal Program.
The largest project being considered
is restoration of spawning habitat for summer-run Chinook
downstream of Comox Lake Dam.
Courtesy of The Comox Valley Echo – Dec 16, 2003
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