On Aug. 30, 41 adult sockeye salmon swam away from the boat launch at Syringa Creek Provincial Park. The fish had already made their way from the Okanagan via water tank and truck as part of a scientific study with an end goal of seeing salmon swimming in the upper Columbia River once again.
One by one the fish were removed from their transportation tank and released into Lower Arrow Lake by First Nations representatives, researchers and community members who were fortunate enough to be at the launch when the release began.
The efforts are part of the Columbia River Salmon Reintroduction Initiative also known as Bringing the Salmon Home. The initiative is a partnership between five governments: the Syilx Okanagan Nation, Ktunaxa Nation, Secwépemc Nation, Canada and British Columbia.
Historically, Pacific salmon occupied an extensive area of the upper Columbia River Basin extending well into Canada. Before Grand Coulee Dam blocked salmon passage in 1939, sockeye salmon inhabited the Upper Arrow, Lower Arrow, and Slocan Lakes. Spawning and incubation occurred in many of the tributaries to these lakes.
This area in southeastern B.C. is the priority focus for the Bringing the Salmon Home initiative.
In recent years, substantial progress has been made in assessment and planning to support long-term reintroduction efforts and the Arrow Lakes study will further contribute to that knowledge.
The Okanagan River still gets a run of sockeye as the fish make their way up from the mouth of the Columbia River at Astoria, Oregon, into the river's tributaries. The Okanagan Nation Alliance has been working on rebuilding salmon stocks in that region for about 20 years.
Those efforts appear to be paying off, as this year's run saw record-breaking numbers with an estimated 750,000 sockeye making it over the Bonneville Dam (the first dam from the ocean) and about 500,000 making it over the Wells Dam, the ninth and final dam that salmon can cross.
In July, a partial run of salmon made it to the Okanagan and 16 adults were captured at Okanagan Falls and released into the Arrow Lakes at Syringa.
Warm weather slowed the run but water temperatures cooled enough the last few weeks to encourage the fish to move again, enabling the researchers to capture a second batch of fish to release last week.
There were no mortalities in the capture or transportation of the fish. They are expected to stay in the Arrow Lakes until the spawn in October.
Trackers were placed by mouth in the 57 sockeye now swimming in the Arrow Lakes. These acoustic tags will allow researchers to monitor the movements and behaviours of the fish. An array of 27 orange buoy hydro-phone receivers were placed between just below Syringa above the Keenleyside Dam to Arrow Head at the top of the Upper Arrow Lake spanning 230 kilometres. The receivers each have a range of about one kilometre.
"That paints a picture for us, what do these fish do? They haven't been here for 85 years, do they know what to do? If we go full-on reintroduction, are they all going to migrate back out and try to get to the ocean, or are they going to look for a tributary to do their spawning?" explained Michael Zimmer, Syilx Okanagan Nation Fisheries Team Lead.
Study lead Patrick Zubick said the buoys have primarily been placed at pinch points in the lake and near tributaries and streams where the fish may be most likely to desire for spawning.
He says the information gathered from this phase of the study will be used to inform future work.
For example, if groups of fish are seen to be gathering near potential spawning sites for periods of time, they can dig into that information to find out why.
"If we deem reintroduction to be feasible, that could be one of our primary outplants of juveniles and fish," explained Zubick.
"Within this whole collaborative effort of bringing the salmon home, it is letting the fish show us what they want to do. They know what they want to do, they have done this for millennia before we messed with them."
There has already been successful tracking of the first group. They all survived and some went as far as Arrow Head.
The study fish have also been tagged with visible tags to warn anglers. If you encounter one of these fish, please minimize handling and get it back into the water as soon as possible.
"The science is there, the need, the desire from the Nations to have their salmon back is also strong – so now is the time, let's work together to make this happen," said Zimmer.
READ MORE: Sinixt release salmon into Columbia River in U.S., track migration to Canada
