Silverdale Creek Wetlands

Excavation for the off-channel habitat project was completed at the end of March 2009.  The main objective of the project was to create habitat for Chinnook and Coho during their down stream migration.  Channels and ditches in freshett inundated wetland provide a refuge from spring flood waters in the Fraser as well as offering a rich feeding area for the newly emerged, migrating fry. The Silverdale Creek channels will offer habitat to migrating chinook from multiple spawning streams up river of the site.  Coho salmon from Silverdale Creek and surrounding streams will use the new habitat during the winter as well as for a resting/feeding location on their down stream migration.  In total approximately 500 m of new channel was created.  The channel was designed to flooding and drying. 

 As a result water will remain at 4.2 m during late fall, winter and spring.  

This will result in shallow flooding of what was formerly fields of invasive canary grass.  These flooded and partially flooded areas not only offer prime salmon habitat but also serve as resting/feeding areas for migrating water fowl and breeding habitat for amphibian species such as red legged frogs.  

In late spring the Fraser flood waters will cover most of the site.  Normal flood levels range from 5.5m to 6.5 m.  In designing this habitat enhancement project islands of terrestrail habitat above 7m elevation were created to support stands of cottonwood, alder, cedar and spruce.

Shortly after the picture above was taken, excavation continued and the channel was brought another 100 m north and  drained via a beaver box into a newly constructed outflow stream.  The stream was constructed on a bed of gravel which extends 60 cm deep and 1 m beyond wetted bank on each side.  Overtime and with the intrusion of chum and pink spawners the small creek will evolve into a more natural condition.

Silverdale Creek Wetlands Progress

The DFO lead, and Pacific Salmon Society financed, habitat enhancement project on the wetlands is proceeding well.  Taking great care to avoid silt leaving the project site the channel has been dug in isolation from any drainage area.  The channel has now reached its southern most point and excavation of a gentle turn to redirect the channel north is underway.  By the end of next week the channel should be finished to the water level control section which will establish the upper wetlands water table at 4.2 m  and allow for a steeper gradient so that the channel can flow into existing off channels that are near creek level.  Included in the channel's structure is an emergency outflow set a few cm. higher than 4.2m.  In case of beaver activity or other such occurrences this will allow water to flow harmlessly into another creek side channel rather than flooding sensitive terrestrial habitat.  

Information from Kiyoshi

Stave Valley Salmonid Enhancement Society's good friend Kiyoshi Takahashi has returned from volunteering his engineering skills on a project in Thailand but has been in poor health since his return.  The normally active Kiyoshi, who would think nothing of hiking 5 km now has difficulty walking for 15 minutes.  However, Kiyoshi informs us that he is beating the asthma and stomach problems.  As a matter of fact he is working to build up his strength so that he can return to Thailand and finish up his engineering project.  All of us at SVSES are pulling for Kiyoshi's full recovery.  He is important not only to people and the environment in a wide variety of places.  To help illustrate this point I have included some of SVSES's pictures of Kiyoshi as well as a Tri-Cities Newspaper article and a brief note sent along to help us out.

A Message from Kiyoshi

Notes About Bird Nest Boxes

It’s good to hear that the swallow boxes in both Silverdale and Stave River sites were active last spring, and in fact I too visited these sites 3 times myself to check it out in year of 2008. Due to very cool spring in the south, and poor weather locally in 2008, activities of migratory birds to breed in north were record low within my experience in the last 15 years, and according to an official record, the poor activities were almost record low in the last many decades. PUMA nesting was especially disappointingly low, although activities of swallows were not as bad as PUMA.

We (the Burke Mountain Naturalists) are planning to do cleaning of nearly 500 nest boxes in our locations around Tri-cites, during February this year. Under a normal condition, I would suggest plan in clean boxes in February for Tree Swallows and

 Violet-green Swallows, as they start arriving from south in late Feb. to March. Purple martins arrive a month (adults) or two (sub-adults) later than other swallows, and boxes can be cleaned in March at the latest. We suggest cleaning boxes after cold and wet winter, to avoid further wetting of the nesting beds inside boxes just in case boxes have some leakage of rainwater. Many of recent bird boxes have resistance to rainwater and cleaning can be done earlier if so desired. Bedding materials for TRSW and VGSW can be cut, dry grass or more conveniently wood shavings. However, PUMA prefers only few pieces of relatively long (3-4”) cut, dry grass leaves or stems.

When we clean boxes, we always knock entrances

 before removing old nests to make sure to let out squirrels or other animals just in case they use boxes for their winter roosting. Often we find Flying Squirrel inside the swallow boxes. During cleaning boxes, we occasionally find boxes filled almost to its entrance hole with moss and deciduous tree leaves, which indicate boxes were used by one of squirrels or mouse. They usually roost by crawling down into moss. When we see the sign of them, we normally leave it without clean out for them to return, on a condition that there are enough vacant boxes available in the site for birds.

One of the photos in the Mission Stream website showed duck feathers in a nest. This is very common when they need more bedding materials. 

Violet-green Swallow seems to prefer to it although they more prefer holes of trees. The feather can be either ducks’ or any other birds that show in the photo, in some cases their own.

Why shape of swallow boxes and PUMA (though it is the largest kind of swallows) are different? TRSW and VGSW boxes are most commonly on land where four legged small animals such as Grey squirrels, Norway rats, or Raccoons may climb up to the box and take eggs or nestlings in the boxes for their meals, or make it their own nests. To avoid them from entering, the entrance hole should be at least 5 inches from the bottom and also avoid overloading of bedding materials.

On the contrary to this, PUMA boxes are commonly 

horizontal shape of minimum of 8” deep from entrance to end panel. They are commonly installed on or by the water, where normally the four-legged animals are not common, but most serious predators are gulls and eagles. Horizontally deep shape is to avoid these predators to reach to inside easily. Also, the rectangular shape of entrance is designed to avoid European starlings to overtake the nest before PUMA’s arrival in late spring. Both birds are similar in size but EUST are somewhat larger belly, and not easily enter this 1 3/16” high entrance opening, based on the study conducted by PUMA Conservation Assoc. I too witnessed some EUST tried to enter and eventually gave up.

PUMA boxes are now installed in several Fraser Valley locations, such as Nicomen Slough, Eagle Spot on Harrison River, and Chehalis Lake along with Stave 

River and Silverdale Creek Wetland sites. Now we have about a dozen PUMA sites in all over lower mainland. It may take some time for PUMA to notice these inland nesting sites, the first nesting of pairs in both Stave River and Nicomen sites in 2006 and 2007 were very encouraging.

At last, but not least, I wish to congratulate your effort to enhance salmon habitats. 

Tri-Cities Newspaper article about Kiyoshi

Salmon in the Classroom

Since 1981 Stave Valley Salmonid Enhancement Society has operated an educational program with Mission Public Schools.  Using DFO and BCTF produced Salmonid in the Classroom materials, teachers in a variety of elementary grades offer Science and Social Studies units covering everything from salmon life cycle and habitat requirements to the importance of salmon to B.C. economy.  

SVSES assists teachers by providing hands on activities with local salmon enhancement and habitat projects.  One traditional activity is the collection of brood stock on 

the Stave River.  Students join SVSES volunteers on the river to net chum salmon and collect eggs and milt.  Students then go to either the Silvermere Lake Hatchery or the Bob Brook Hatchery to fertilize the eggs and see them placed in incubation trays.

In January SVSES transports 75 - 100 eyed eggs to participating classrooms.  

With assistance from Lorraine Johnson, salmon project coordinator for Mission Public Schools, classrooms have set up an incubation aquarium that will allow the eggs to hatch into alievin and then develop into emerging fry.  The classes usually release the fry into designated streams in early April.  The size of the aquariums makes holding and feeding fry difficult as the fish rapidly out grow their artificial environment.  Adventurous classrooms will start doing partial releases in early April but retain approximately 50% of the population at each release date.  Thus April 1st will see a drop in population from 100 to 50 fry.  

On April the 7th the population would drop from 50 to 25 fry and so on until the by the end of April less than half a dozen fry remain.  While this is a great deal more work and presents an elevated risk of moralities it does allow students to view first hand the rapid development of fry.  Needless to say students become very attached to their classroom guests and are sometimes reluctant to release them into the wild to complete their life cycle.

In the last 28 years SVSES has worked with in excess of 6000 students.  A number of our early students are now parents of today's participants.  It is interesting to speak with these early students  as they all have vivid memories of the day, long ago, when they came down to the Stave River and pulled in the big nets.  " Do you remember our class.  You said we were the best class ever.  We caught so many fish.  We even caught a giant Chinook! Remember that? "  It is interesting that the 30 something parent in front of me has momentarily transformed into the excited small child they were almost two decades before.   Not surprising though as the small child that resides in me is always present no matter how many times I pull in a net or empty a salmon trap.

Whether or not these educational activities have any long term impact on the lives of students is entirely subjective.  We know that a few of our former students have gone into fisheries related fields. 

 Certainly SVSES has received  numerous phone calls from former

 students telling us about potential dangers to local streams.  Certainly George Donatelli, Philip Little and I know that we a frequently stopped by past and present student in stores and at community events to talk fish.

Silverdale Creek Wetlands Project Begins

After two years of red tape phase 2 of the Silverdale Creek Wetlands Project has started.  Spearheaded by DFO, the project will use funding from the Ministry of Transportation, Pacific Salmon Foundation and Mission Rotary to build approximately 500m of cold water low gradient channels as well as constructing extensive shallow water aquatic benches  and varied elevation terrestrial habitat.  All of this will be built in an area that currently consists of a monoculture of canary grass in a long abandoned farm field.

Spoil from the excavated channels will be used to construct islands of vegetation including cottonwood, alder, cedar, and spruce trees.  Terrestrial elevations will range from 4m to 7m.

Today construction of the eastern most channel neared completion and wildlife poles were placed on the east back while machine access will still possible.  In total five wildlife poles were place, one of which supports a Red tailed hawk / Great horned owl nesting platform.  

Enhancement will continue on the site until at least March 15, 2009. 

Checking Last Season's Swallow Nests

In late winter of 2008 eleven swallow boxes were placed in pairs on posts along newly constructed aquatic channels in the Silverdale Creek Wetlands.  In April, May and June there was considerable activity around the boxes but checking the boxes too closely  was likely to disturb potentially nesting pairs.  Following the accepted practice we left the boxes undisturbed until today.  January and February are the preferred months to maintain and replace nesting boxes.  They are not being used at this time of
 year and will have a few months to weather and blend into the natural setting.     As a thirty year fish person my limited experience with birds caused me to believe that this period of weathering would allow all traces of human scent to leave the boxes and not frighten away nesting pairs.  However,SVSES's good friend and bird expert, Kiyoshi Takahashi,  has informed me that most birds do not have the ability to smell.  So even when handling young the old tale of the mother abandoning the chicks because of human scent  has no basis in fact.  I will ask Kiyoshi to review this entry and perhaps make comments to provide myself and other fish people with some more bird education.  

The Ice and snow made accessing the boxes somewhat difficult. 

 The aquatic area had frozen and then 

reflooded as water levels changed.  this resulted in two layers of ice.  As I carried

 the ladder across the shallows I would break through one layer and then the second layer of ice would give way and my leg would plunge all the way down to the muddy bottom.  The easiest progress was made by deliberately smashing a path trough the ice. 

Of the eleven boxes only one had been knocked off the pole.  I brought it back to the workshop to repair and use as a sample for West Heights Elementary School nesting box project.  

The other boxes were intact and secure on the posts.  Six showed no signs of occupation.  I cleaned these boxes out and

 placed fresh wood shavings in them.  The other boxes all showed signs of occupation last season.    Most had a combination of feathers and canary grass.  Hopefully Kiyoshi will get a chance to look at the pics and tell us what type of feathers these are.  They appear too large to be swallow so my bet is that swallows use scavenged feathers from other species to line their nests.  

Two of the boxes contained a dead bird each and one also had two unhatched eggs.  I would speculate that the cold spring this year resulted in these

 two females starving to death during the late cold snap we experienced.  During this time most insects disappeared making it very difficult for already nesting birds. 

 If you zoom in on this image you can see the mummified remains of the swallow and its two eggs                                                                       

A Walk In The Snow

Access to the Silverdale Creek Wetlands has been very difficult for the last two weeks.  The trail head is located off Old Silverdale Rd. which is a secondary route and as such has had the traffic lanes plowed but parking on site is impossible.  Up until the recent rains very few people or animals had walked the path and breaking trail required walking through knee deep snow.

However the short walk through deep snow provided spectacular viewing of a winter wetland. 

 

On the surface few signs of life were evident but quiet observation revealed  water fowl in both the north pond and in the creek itself.  Coyote scat and prints were abundant and beaver had made a meal of at least 15 of our newly planted cottonwood.  Even though these trees had protective plastic guards the determined animals were able to stretch tall enough to chew through the trunks above the plastic.  It would appear that some taller wire is required. 

The salmon statue at the end of the path made a perfect vantage point to watch a red tailed hawk that was hunting the exposed grass banks near the highway.

The newly installed pier over the pond's drainage gate also made an excellent view point.  It overlooks the eastern forested slope of ecological reserve. Higher flows caused by the on again off again snow melt have kept the pond from freezing completely over.  Bird and other wildlife activity is evident near the open water. 

Wood Duck Nesting Boxes

With almost two feet of snow on the ground it seemed appropriate to minimize outdoor activities and catch up on some work that can be completed in a warm, dry workshop.  Other than daily incubation shed checks, I have concentrated on building wood duck nesting boxes.  These boxes will be set on poles in the Silverdale Creek Wetlands.  The small northern pond is the preferred location as it is the greatest distance from human contact and is frequented by large numbers of wood ducks.  Support poles will be placed early this spring in conjunction with work being done by Fisheries and Oceans Canada.  

The nest box design has been modified by Kiyoshi Takahashi, a member of the Burke Mountain Naturalists and an extraordinary wildlife photographer.  Kiyoshi is also responsible for a Purple Martin Colony that has been established in Port Moody.  It was through this contact that SVSES got to know Kiyoshi.  He was instrumental SVSES successful efforts to establish Purple Martin nesting on the Stave River.  The first two pictures are Purple Martin boxes located on the Stave River.  Kiyoshi is checking on the development of the baby Purple Martins hatched during the first nesting season after the box was placed on site.


The Wood duck box designed by Kiyoshi is somewhat larger than conventional designs.  this allows for communal egg incubation which sometimes occurs with this species. 

The boxes I have constructed as my pilot attempt are made from salvaged 3/4 in plywood.  In order to conserve material I have used 5/8 in plywood for some of the sides.  The pieces have been joined with decking screws and liquid nail glue.  The glue was also used to weather proof seams.  In this initial run roof boards were not cut on the appropriate bevel and caulking was required to seal the roof to the back board.  Interior corners were reinforced with 1x2.  Fire hose will be stapled in place to hinge the inspection door on the one side.

                                                                                                                                                                         

 

Bob Brook Hatchery

Bob Brook Hatchery is located on the Stave River System but because it is upstream of the Ruskin Dam fry hatched at the facility must be trucked to release locations where brood stock was captured. This year the Bob brook Hatchery is incubating Silverdale Creek chum (45,000) and coho eggs (25,000). In addition this year we are holding 8500 Windebank Creek coho.

At this site all incubation is done in Heath Trays. Each half stack can hold up to 50,000 eggs. In our case we load the trays very lightly to facilitate the removal of dead eggs. Salmon eggs are hyper-sensitive until they have grown to the point that their eyes can be clearly seen inside the egg. If the eggs are more than minimally disturbed prior to this they will die. At the Bob Brook hatchery this presents a problem because fungus grows on the dead eggs long before the other eggs in the tray have eyed. Once established on the dead eggs the fungus will spread to the live eggs and kill them. Our solution has been to load the trays very lightly and to pick out the dead eggs without disturbing any of the other eggs in the tray. This is not an easy task, particularly in the very cold days of December. In some cases where fertilization has been poor or the eggs were damaged while still in the mother a 25% mortality rate is entirely possible. Even in a lightly loaded tray this can mean individually picking out 500 - 700 eggs.

Two half stacks filled with coho eggs

Picking chum eggs in a tray with a very low mortality rate

The Bob Brook Hatchery is located 1200 ft. from the power grid so it operates entirely through gravity feed. Lighting is provided either by natural light or with the assistance of a small generator which must be carried down the hill. However, despite the lack of amenities and the extra effort required, Bob Brook is a beautiful site.

Silverdale Creek Brood Stock Collection Fence Removed for this Year

The brood stock collection fence on lower Silverdale Creek was removed from the stream and put in storage until next year. The floating fish fence successfully captured enough coho salmon for SVSES to collect 25,000 eggs for incubation. Surplus fish were passed over the fence so they could spawn naturally up stream.

The fence is an innovative design created by Maurice Coulter-Boisvert, a DFO Community Advisor. The 12m wide and 4m long fence is composed of aluminum pipes. The pipes are made into manageable panels (1.5m x 4m) which are joined together to form a solid "fence" across the creek. The fence is fastened securely to each bank and the upstream edge is held to the stream bed via a series of cable anchors connected to "grabber bars". The down stream edge is supported by an inflatable air bladder. When inflated the downstream edge of the fence is lifted out of the water allowing the returning salmon to underneath. There the salmon can only continue upstream by swimming through a tunnel that leads into a trap box. Once in the trap box a majority of the fish are counted and released to continue upstream. A few are selected and spawned artificially so that their off-spring can be released in Silverdale Creek's headwaters the following year.

The inflatible fish fence has the advantage of being able to be deflated in extreme flood conditions or when it is considered desirable to allow fish to pass upstream without interference. Deflation is also a effective and generally effortless method of clearing debris from the fence.

Demolition of the Sayres Lake Cabin

In May of 2008 all docks and fish pens had been removed from Sayers Lake and environmental risks posed by the abandoned fish rearing facility were eliminated. However, the four bedroom, two story cabin that had housed staff still existed.

In the first years after the facility had closed a caretaker had help protect and maintain the site. At least a year before SVSES considered taking over the site the caretaker had moved on and the main building had been subject to considerable vandalism. All windows and plumbing fixtures had been smashed and the interior of the building had been exposed to the elements for at least one year. Most worrisome flammable liquid had been thrown into the living room. The room was scorched but the building did not catch on fire.

During the first six months SVSES spent cleaning up the sight vandalism continued. Cupboards and other fixtures were ripped out. Items, including household chemical and oil containers were thrown into the lake. A small shed and some of the trees near it were destroyed by fire. Given the public and environmental dangers presented it was decided that the house needed to be removed from the site.

Very little research was required to determine that removing the house and placing it on an alternate location was not economically feasible. In part this was because the house was only accessible via a wooden foot trestle. Tearing down the hose to salvage lumber was also deemed uneconomical. Finally we offered the house as a practice site for fighting interface forest fires but no official interest was shown for this option. In the end the Freshwater Fisheries Society of B.C. contracted Mission Contractors to demolish the house and haul all debris to the Mission Land fill. As far as possible material was sorted. Potentially toxic material (dry wall) removed separately. Other material such as metals were recycled. The bulk of the house, however, ended up in the landfill.

Within a week the site had been returned to a natural state. Other than a large concrete piling in the lake absolutely nothing of the house or its man made surroundings remained.

Removal of Floats at Sayres Lake

In the early spring of 2008 SVSES backed by the Freshwater Fisheries Society of B.C. began the removal of all "in lake" components of the old fish rearing facility. This involved breaking down and removing 18 square floating rearing pens. The pens were 6m sq. and supported a wire mesh cube that were 6m deep. Each pen weighed approximately 500 lbs. Each pen was supported by wood and foam floats measuring 1.5m x 6m. The floats were bracketed and bolted into squares and had to be disconnected and floated separately to be removed from the lake . Every effort was made to remove the floats and cages intact to avoid having the foam scattered across the lake. Later we discovered that the salvage value of these floats was enough to pay for trucking them off the site. With the assistance of an excavator all the floats were removed from the lake and stacked in the parking area to await disposal.

The site also contained five metal barges. These barges were sealed military bridging components. They were checked and found to be free of any contaminants. Several, however, were very close to sinking. Inspection plates were carefully removed and gas powered pumps were used to empty bilges. The largest of the floats was 20m long and 2.5m wide. Constructed from steel plate up to 1/2 inch thick it weighed in excess of 36,000 lbs. The lifting capacity of the excavator on site was just sufficient to drag this barge up the bank and block it up for transport off site. The barges were eventually sold to a local marine towing company and produced sufficient income to pay for the trucking.

The final component to be removed from the lake was an extensive log boom break water. The twenty-one 13 m long fir logs were lifted from the lake and stacked in the parking area where they were allowed to dry over the summer. In early December of 2008 they were trucked down to the Silverdale Creek Estuary Wetlands. On the wetlands they will be placed in newly constructed aquatic habitat to serve as wildlife poles.

Sayres Lake Clean Up Nearing Completion

After more than a year of work the old prison camp on Sayres Lake has all but vanished. In September of 2007 SVSES was approached to see if it could take over the lease on the camp and use it as a environmental education center. The poor condition of the main house due to vandalism and the general lawlessness of the area convinced the Society's executive that operating the camp was beyond their means. As an alternative SVSES agreed to salvage usable materials from the site and return the area to its natural condition.

That autumn a large shed in the parking area was dismantled and the dimension lumber and metal roofing was salvaged. Attempts were initiated to remove and salvage the eighteen floating net pens but it quickly became apparent that that the cost of the salvage/clean-up would be beyond SVSES's budget abilities. Following discussions with the Fresh Water Fisheries Association, who last operated the site, SVSES was granted funding for the salvage and began removing the docks in the early spring of 2008. To view the site on Google Earth go to : http://maps.google.com/maps?t=h&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=49.319548,-122.30777&spn=0.033233,0.070038&z=13 Google earth has several pictutes of the camp taken before it was heavily vandalised.

The story of the Sayres Lake clean up will be continued over the next several days.

Broodstock Collection completed on Silverdale Creek

The successful capture of two coho does on the evening of Dec. 5th, 2008 ended SVSES's attempts to collect coho eggs on Silverdale Creek this year. Approximately 25,000 coho eggs and 50,000 chum eggs were taken from Silverdale Creek and are being incubated in SVSES's Bob Brook Hatchery. The floating fish fence has now been deflated and all further returning spawners will be allowed to carry on up stream and spawn naturally. Jim Taylor, who manages Silverdale Creek projects, views the coho returns as disappointing this year. SVSES's goal was 50,000 eggs.

Once the eggs have hatched they will be held in rearing troughs at Bob Brook until July 1st when they will be transported to SVSES's rearing facility on the headwaters of Silverdale Creek. These coho will leave this "no fence" rearing facility in May 2010 and begin their journey out into the Pacific Ocean. We should see them again as returning adults in November 2012.