My goodness. Pennsylvania is getting its share of better beaver minds at the moment. I even heard tale about beaver information making its way to the new democratic governor. And stories like this can’t hurt.

Spill into Saanich’s Colquitz River could kill future salmon runs

A local environmental advocate fears a recent spill of warm, sediment-rich water into the Colquitz River system could lead to the failure of future salmon runs.

Ian Bruce, executive director of the Peninsula Streams Society, expressed this fear after he and others witnessed the river turn “chocolate brown” on Thursday, May 2. Students from Royal Oak middle school were releasing Coho fry into the river at the Wilkinson Road and Lindsay Avenue when the level of the river suddenly rose four inches in height, said Bruce, whose organization hosted the students.

“The clear, slow moving water became chocolate brown with sediment, and began rushing by,” he said. Its temperature rose from 10.8 degree Celsius to 18.5 degree Celsius, while the level of dissolved oxygen dropped by more than half, he added.

After calling authorities, Bruce and others then followed the river to discover that the water had entered the Colquitz River through Viaduct Creek, an upstream tributary, that runs near the Horticultural Centre of the Pacific (HCP).

That can’t be good. So the water is running chocolate brown. Anything else you can tell us?

“At the site where the man-made lake behind [HCP] enters Viaduct Creek, we found evidence of beaver dam removal from the weir and overflow spillways with lots of sediment and the water from the lake rushing into the creek, then into the Colquitz River via Quick Bottom wetland.”

Ah HA!
That might be the source of your muddy water right there, and if its not the only culprit it certainly made things worse. Now the article doesn’t go on to explicitly state how much better beavers make things for salmon fry, but I would argue it’s definitely implied.

Bruce expects the incident will have immediate and long-term impacts. Immediate impacts of the spill include the potential death or definite impairment of Coho fry and [smolt] Cutthroat eggs and juveniles, and aquatic insects on which salmon juveniles rely for their food, said Bruce. “Longer term impacts could include failure of future runs,” he added.

Bruce said Salmons already face so many threats that are not easily controlled, including climate change, not to have preventable incidents like this to happen.

Salmons?

Well, okay its Pennsylvania and we’re grading on a curve. The takeaway here is that ripping out beaver dams is bad for salmon. At least that’s what I’m taking away from this. I hope that’s what the students take away too.

This photo ran on the ghost bear facebook page yesterday and I just had to share.

And hey, our ad appeared in Community Focus yesterday and the placement could NOT be better. I  sure hope the mayor doesn’t mind his new neighbors but he wasn’t so happy about them last time around as I recall.