Emergency salmon conservation enhancement at the Big Bar landslide response in British Columbia

The importance of the enhancement is part and parcel with the Big Bar response.

As work is being done that will allow fish to migrate volitionally and unimpeded, the enhancement program will still complement that.

So if there are blockages, until that work is completed, the enhancement program will help to keep those fish stocks for those years, have a representation in their populations.

You capture your fish, you take the gametes, so you take the eggs from the females, you take the milt from the males.

Then you spawn the fish, the eggs go into incubation.

And they hatch into alevins, so they start using their yolk sac up.

And then they become swim-up fry.

So, we pond them into channels or tubs outside.

And basically, you rear them to whatever release size.

Then when you release them, you release them back home to where they would have been born.

Big Bar enhancement would be unique to other enhancement programs, mainly due to the remoteness of the site.

Water source is a big thing, the Big Bar you're taking water from a stream, and you've got to balance the river fluctuations.

The freshet was long and prolonged.

That makes it difficult for catching fish for transporting fish. IDing your fish as well.

So, we had to do DNA samples to find out that they were the fish that we were trying to target.

There's definitely a lot of difficulties, as compared to a normal program where you go to the river where the fish are from, you know when they're going to be there.

It's much more controlled, and it's been done, Big Bar enhancement, never been done before.

There were many, many people involved in the enhancement efforts.

Some of our partners together were different First Nations, UFFCA, Go Fish BC, with DFO hatcheries that were involved in this as well.

Our First Nations partner's role at the Big Bar was critical.

They were involved in all aspects of the program and without them we wouldn’t have been able to be as successful as we were.

The amount of dedication, passion, experience and knowledge was critical as well.

It was just a big huge effort that couldn't be done without them.

Well one of the things is with all the three governments is making sure that you  communicate with each other so that you’re on the same page.

But if you work together like what we said when we first started, let’s get this done, it’s for the fish.

So, the 2019 brood year Early Stuart sockeye release occurred in October of 2020.

We arrived at Gluske Creek and met with local First Nations, fisheries officers, community advisors.

The release went well, the fish were healthy.

Fixing our problem with these fishes migrations up the river is quite important and they’re part of what is BC.

It’s part of our environment and supports us.

It's important to fix the problem with the Big Bar landslide.

Because if we don't do anything about it, we can end up losing certain fish stocks forever.