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Fishing fans hope to create salmon run for Ogden Point
Carolyn Heiman, Times Colonist
Published: Friday, December 07, 2007
Mexico has its monarch butterflies. San Juan Capistrano has its swallows. Now a non-profit fishing group wants Ogden Point to attract pink salmon every year.
Mind you, if things go as planned, a fish would have only one chance to return before being snagged at the end of a fishing line.
The Amalgamated Conservation Society wants to create a recreational fishing hot spot for land-bound anglers off Ogden Point. To do that, members would raise fry salmon in pens off the point in hopes that after they're released into the ocean, they'll return to the area when grown.
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Font:****Wayne Zaccarelli, the group's secretary-treasurer, said provincial and federal authorities have given tentative support to the penned-salmon project.
Paul Servos, general manager of the Greater Victoria Harbour Authority, says that organization has given the plan the thumbs up because it won't interfere with shipping.
Servos said the pens would only be in place for a few weeks each year. "We think it is a good community thing," he said.
Under the plan, eggs would be hatched at the Goldstream hatchery and the young salmon fry would be raised in pens off the point for a few months before being released into the ocean. By 2010, the salmon would return to the area large enough that anglers could begin fishing.
Zaccarelli said the six-by-six-metre pens could be in place as early as this spring, as long as a source of salmon eggs acceptable to federal fisheries officials can be identified. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans limits transplanting eggs from one conservation unit to another that might have different genetics.
Transplanting eggs from salmon from the Quinsam River near Campbell River has been rejected, and now the organization is looking at the North Fraser or rivers in Washington state.
Zaccarelli said salmon returning to the area would be visible from the shore and easy to catch. "It would be food for people with handicaps, kids and anglers who don't have boats."
However not everyone is enamoured of the plan, which follows similar recreational fishing projects in Nanaimo's Departure Bay and off Campbell River's fishing pier.
Jody Watson, co-ordinator for the Gorge Waterway Initiative, said that group has written to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the provincial Environment Ministry asking for assurances that the recreational project wouldn't harm native stocks in the Gorge, which include coho and chum salmon and sea-run cutthroat trout.
Watson said the salmon run in the Colquitz River has never been stocked, which is "quite unusual" in an urban environment.
Carolyn Heiman, Times Colonist
Published: Friday, December 07, 2007
Mexico has its monarch butterflies. San Juan Capistrano has its swallows. Now a non-profit fishing group wants Ogden Point to attract pink salmon every year.
Mind you, if things go as planned, a fish would have only one chance to return before being snagged at the end of a fishing line.
The Amalgamated Conservation Society wants to create a recreational fishing hot spot for land-bound anglers off Ogden Point. To do that, members would raise fry salmon in pens off the point in hopes that after they're released into the ocean, they'll return to the area when grown.
Email to a friend
Printer friendly
Font:****Wayne Zaccarelli, the group's secretary-treasurer, said provincial and federal authorities have given tentative support to the penned-salmon project.
Paul Servos, general manager of the Greater Victoria Harbour Authority, says that organization has given the plan the thumbs up because it won't interfere with shipping.
Servos said the pens would only be in place for a few weeks each year. "We think it is a good community thing," he said.
Under the plan, eggs would be hatched at the Goldstream hatchery and the young salmon fry would be raised in pens off the point for a few months before being released into the ocean. By 2010, the salmon would return to the area large enough that anglers could begin fishing.
Zaccarelli said the six-by-six-metre pens could be in place as early as this spring, as long as a source of salmon eggs acceptable to federal fisheries officials can be identified. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans limits transplanting eggs from one conservation unit to another that might have different genetics.
Transplanting eggs from salmon from the Quinsam River near Campbell River has been rejected, and now the organization is looking at the North Fraser or rivers in Washington state.
Zaccarelli said salmon returning to the area would be visible from the shore and easy to catch. "It would be food for people with handicaps, kids and anglers who don't have boats."
However not everyone is enamoured of the plan, which follows similar recreational fishing projects in Nanaimo's Departure Bay and off Campbell River's fishing pier.
Jody Watson, co-ordinator for the Gorge Waterway Initiative, said that group has written to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the provincial Environment Ministry asking for assurances that the recreational project wouldn't harm native stocks in the Gorge, which include coho and chum salmon and sea-run cutthroat trout.
Watson said the salmon run in the Colquitz River has never been stocked, which is "quite unusual" in an urban environment.
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