By Steve Hubrecht
The Lake Windermere District Rod and Gun Club continued its long-running efforts to help Kokanee salmon last week by planting more fertilized Kokanee eggs in Abel Creek.
On Monday, Oct. 28, a group of approximately half a dozen volunteers with the club placed 30,000 eggs on a gravel incubating platform in a section of the creek near Johnston Road. This was the second year they had done so, having placed 50,000 eggs in the same spot last year.
Club member Ben Mitchell-Banks explained that this is year two of an eight-year program.
Kokanee operate on a four-year cycle, meaning the fish return to their birth streams every four years to spawn. By placing eggs in Abel Creek for eight years in a row “we will give each (four-year) run cycle two boosts. After that we’ll let Mother Nature take her course,” said Mitchell-Banks.
The eggs came from the Kootenay Trout Hatchery near Wardner (close to Fort Steele). The Rod and Gun Club volunteers were able to re-use the same egg tubes from last fall. The eggs will hatch in the spring and the alevins will make their way downstream all the way to Kinbasket Lake.
Lake Windermere District Rod and Gun Club volunteers conducted a fish count of Kokanee in the Abel Creek system earlier this year and found 42 fish. That may not sound like a lot (and it isn’t), but it’s still more than the six Kokanee they found in the 2023 fish count.
“That’s (the 42 Kokanee) a fraction of what this system could support,” Mitchell-Banks told the Pioneer. He outlined that Abel Creek could theoretically hold up to 1,000 Kokanee. “Unfortunately prior to 2015, they (the salmon) had very little access to spawning habitat . . . that’s why we are dealing with the low numbers,” he said.
The club has been striving to help salmon in Abel Creek for almost a decade now, in part because such a low population is very vulnerable.
“If you have six fish in the system, and you lose, say, four to natural predators, which does happen all the time, it really makes a big dent in the population. Even at 42, losing four fish is a big deal,” outlined Mitchell-Banks.
Earlier in October, Invermere mayor Al Miller had alluded that more culvert work needs to be done on Abel Creek.
Mitchell-Banks was able to shed some light on what that work entails, explaining that one culvert needs to be taken out because it is redundant, and that some others are aging.
“A downside of culverts is that they require more regular maintenance than bridges,” said Mitchell-Banks, outlining that this typically happens as bed load from the stream degrades the galvanizing zinc coating on the bottom of the culverts, which then begin to rust out.
Abel Creek salmon restoration is one of multiple conservation projects the Lake Windermere District Rod and Gun Club has been involved with this year. They’ve also built bat boxes, swallow boxes, and turtle nesting logs, among other efforts.
