Watershed Watch Salmon Society
Watershed Watch Salmon Society was founded over twenty years ago by a handful of likeminded conservationists led by ecologist Dr. Craig Orr. The non-profit was established in response to a gap in wild salmon advocacy in BC at provincial and federal policy levels. From there on, Watershed Watch was dedicated to advancing and improving policy on topics including harvest and hatchery reform, climate change, watershed management and aquaculture to defend BC’s wild salmon. Their work has since expanded to include educating and engaging British Columbians in the field and online, sharing stories, and building a strong community of wild salmon supporters.
Today, Watershed Watch is made up of a core group of under ten staff, with thousands of supporters and volunteers who are passionate about wild salmon conservation and sustainability advocation. In 2022, volunteers spend over 1,150 hours supporting data collection, events, invasive species removals and more.
Watershed Watch is tackling pertinent issues facing wild salmon through collaborations with other environmental organizations, First Nations and coastal community groups. Their goal is to bring back healthy wild salmon to thriving British Columbia waterways.
“[We are] working to defend and rebuild British Columbia’s wild salmon and their habitats…[our goal is] to see thriving salmon runs across the province…we’ve created lots of good momentum in 2022. Last year we had the most volunteer hours we’ve ever had, and continuously push our current campaigns and raise awareness of these issues and policy”.
Meghan Rooney - Science and Communications Coordinator
Connected Waters
Restore.
Reconnect.
Sustain.
Connected Waters was launched in 2016 as a hands-on habitat conservation campaign. The mission is to restore and reconnect 1500 kilometers of critical salmon habitat located in the lower Fraser floodplain that is blocked by 165 identified flood structures including flood boxes and pump stations.
Flood-prevention measures had been installed over the decades for the purpose of protecting homes and farms from flooding. Flood structures block wild salmon and other aquatic organisms from moving between the mainstem river and side-channels that provide rearing and overwintering habitat for juvenile salmonids. Pumpstations pose an additional threat to fish, as common pump designs will grind up fish that pass through them.
Goals of this ongoing campaign is to restore, reconnect and sustain salmon habitat throughout the lower Fraser watershed by upgrading flood infrastructure to be Fish-Friendly, and restoring flow and riparian habitat to improve water quality. Additional projects include garbage cleanups and the removal of problematic invasive species around the river system. Healthy watersheds support healthy wild salmon populations.
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Working alongside the Katzie First Nation, and Pitt Meadows and Maple Ridge community members Watershed Watch has been working to advocate for fish-friendly flood infrastructure upgrades and habitat restoration at Katzie Slough.
The focused initiatives for the restoration include community engagement, invasive species removal and science-based advocacy at local, provincial and municipal levels to address barriers to fish habitat.
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Watershed Watch has been supporting Save our Sloughs, formerly Friends of Camp-Hope Sloughs, a Chilliwack community group, to help raise awareness about the importance of local waterways.
Through hosting canoe tours, invasive species removals and planting events, the goal is to restore these waterways to improve riparian habitat and water quality for native species, including salmon.
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Restoration efforts for Chilliwack’s Bell Slough began when concerned residents reached out to Watershed Watch after observing an ongoing decline of the waterway.
Since then, nearly two dozen residents who live adjacent to the Slough have joined together to form Friends of Bell Slough.
The group has hosted shoreline plantings and invasive species removal events to improve the health of the waterway and have been advocating to the city for additional investments that will advance restorative efforts.
Watershed Watch supports Resilient Waters, a partner project with MakeWay Canada that is funded through the BC Salmon Restoration and Innovation Fund. Work for Resilient Waters consists of two phases. Phase One was a prioritization study of outdated flood infrastructure in the lower Fraser, performed to identify where the greatest opportunities to restore fish habitat were. Of 156 structures, 25 were identified as being high-priority. Data collection at these sites has been ongoing since 2021. The project was recently approved for Phase Two funding of $2.5 million which will support the completion of three to four fish-friendly upgrades at previously identified high-priority waterways.
Disconnected Waters is Watershed Watch’s interactive atlas shows the extent of disconnected habitat in the lower Fraser watershed. The atlas details the locations of different flood obstructions, structure details, fish activity and habitat health.
The Fraser River flows through British Columbia, and is the longest river in BC. Measuring over 1,300km, the Fraser leads into the Salish Sea. The Fraser river is famous for its abundance of all five species of Pacific Salmon within. Also having the largest amount of salmon runs on earth. The lower Fraser river’s infrastructure obstructions has drastically impacted wild salmon in recent years. Watershed watch is working to fix this problem.
Fishing Smarter
The Fishing Smarter campaign advocates for operational changes in BC’s salmon fisheries so healthy salmon stocks can be harvested and the depleted ones are left to rebuild. As salmon have significant economic and cultural value to communities across BC, especially First Nations communities, fisheries must be managed to ensure the long-term viability of salmon populations.
Watershed Watch’s own watchdogging program has been in effect, monitoring salmon fisheries and exposing reckless, irresponsible and unsustainable management decisions and fishing practices within the industry.
Watershed Watch has been advocating for a shift from ‘mixed stock’ to ‘known stock’ fisheries within British Columbia. By improving fisheries management to protect at-risk populations, we can ensure that salmon persist for generations to come.
As part of their Fishing Smarter work, Watershed Watch recently launched a new campaign, in partnership with SkeenaWild Conservation Trust to address the impacts of Alaskan interception of BC salmon.
Talok Fisheries is an indigenous commercial fishing company owned by Lake Babine Nation within BC. The Lake Babine Nation works with DFO, seafood producers, and other First Nations. Talok Fisheries harvest carefully selected healthy salmon populations while generating economic and community benefits for their people and their region.
“We are working to remove open-pen nets from salmon migration routes…there are concerns for juvenile salmon…[as they] are much more susceptible to parasites. Having pens situated within migration routes poses a threat to juvenile wild salmon.”
Meghan Rooney
Safe Passage
The Safe Passage campaign is an advocacy and education based initiative raising awareness of the issues caused by British Columbia’s open net-pen fish farms. Wild salmon face many threats from fish farms, including parasites, bacteria, viruses and excrements which enter busy coastal waterways from the farms. Safe Passage is calling on the federal government to keep their promise to transition from open net-pen salmon farms by 2025 in by by getting fish farms out of BC’s coastal waterways.
Connection to Clean Technology
Watershed Watch Salmon Society (WWSS) uses a variety of clean technologies (cleantech) at their organization to promote solutions benefiting wild salmon populations. Clean technology includes technologies that either reduce environmental impact or generate environmental benefits. WWSS is on a mission to reconnect over 1500 km of wild salmon habitat in the Lower Fraser River watershed by restoring salmon habitats that have been disconnected by flood infrastructure, such as top-mounted floodgates and Impeller pumps. Flood infrastructure is a vital adaptive strategy used to protect floodplain communities; however, this infrastructure poses a significant barrier to salmon migration. Fish-friendly flood infrastructure provides an opportunity to balance the needs of humans and salmon populations.
Fish-friendly flood infrastructure designs balance the needs of human communities with the well-being of fish by restoring and reconnecting vital habitats and migration routes. Examples of fish-friendly solutions include side-mounted flood gates, vertical sluice gates, self-regulating gates, axial pump stations, archimedes screw pump stations, setback dikes, and dike breaches that reconnect dikes to the floodplain. WWSS has created a section on their website outlining these flood controls with animations depicting how they work. Through their project Resilient Waters, WWSS and the University of British Columbia are researching the effectiveness of fish-friendly gates in supporting salmon populations. So far, the discoveries from the Resilient Waters project indicate that fish-friendly gates are more beneficial for salmon passage and wellbeing compared to the less fish-friendly flood infrastructure. One example of WWSS’s success in restoring habitat connectivity is the Lower Agassiz Slough, in the Fraser Valley, where WWSS and the District of Kent installed a new fish friendly sluice gate. A video about the sluice gate can be seen below. Previously, the Agassiz Slough had an outdated flood system that blocked the waterway, preventing salmon from moving upstream. Alongside the Agassiz community and the District of Kent, WWSS replaced the existing top-mounted floodgate with a vertical sluice gate. The new infrastructure allows salmon passage and, as a result, the salmon returned to the site for the first time in over 70 years! Across the Lower Fraser River watershed, there are over 156 pump stations and flood gates that need assessing and upgrading. To date, 4 of these sites have been replaced with infrastructure that allow for fish passage. In the future, WWSS would like to see all 156 pump stations across the Lower Mainland replaced with fish-friendly options like self-regulating sluice flood gates and fish-friendly pumps.
Resources
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Read Watershed Watch’s published articles, salmon news and more by clicking here.
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The Freshwater Stream is hosted by Danielle Paydli. Danielle interviews people throughout BC, asking them about challenges within their local watersheds and solutions. Listen to her podcast by clicking here.
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Salmon News is Watershed Watch’s weekly updates on salmon and their surrounding habitats, delivered to your inbox every Wednesday. Read Salmon News here.
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