After a late start to Vancouver Island's rainy fall season this year, water levels in local rivers have started to rise, increasing space for spawning salmon.
The Goldstream Fish Hatchery says this year's salmon run began about two weeks late. Since the run began, roughly 1,600 fish have made their way up the Goldstream River, according to the hatchery."Right now, the river is in a good position down at this end of it for the salmon to start advancing up," said Dorothy Chambers of Salmon in the City, a volunteer group that monitors salmon returns on the Colquitz.
"Fish need cool, clean water to do their business, and with global warming we've seen an increasingly severe drought and flood cycle that's having a tremendous impact, so it's such a relief when we get the rain." He called on the provincial NDP government to deliver on a campaign promise to provide stable funding for groups protecting salmon habitat.
The federal government could also be doing more to protect wild salmon, Hill said, criticizing the amount of time it has taken for Fisheries and Oceans Canada to allocate more than $600 million in funding promised through the Pacific Salmon Strategy Initiative in 2021.