(image courtesy Sunshine Coast Salmonid Enhancement Society)
The ongoing drought has a lot of people concerned about salmon runs, but it’s also posing another problem for the Sunshine Coast’s Chapman Creek Hatchery.
The hatchery operates on “flow through”; meaning it draws water for its tanks from Chapman, and then it goes back into the creek.
David Burnett is with the Sunshine Coast Salmonid Enhancement Society.
“If the flows are low, we have less water to run our tanks so right now we’re only operating with 3 tanks out of 30 tanks” he says. “The fish we have on site are 54-thousand juvenile Coho that were spawned last fall. They’ll stay with us until next year – April – for release.”
Burnett says they’re adding well water to the tanks, mainly to keep the water cool, but if it hits the point they can’t draw anything from Chapman Creek those Coho, and the trout the hatchery raises for sale, could be at risk.
He also says there’s no point in releasing the Coho into the creek, because they couldn’t survive.
