Local kids celebrated the environment last week by releasing about 10,000 young chum salmon at Guichon Creek in Burnaby.
Mayor Mike Hurley and internationally recognized environmentalist and streamkeeper Mark Angelo joined children from the BCIT Student Association Childcare Centre, and the group read from Angelo’s book The Little Creek that Could.
Angelo told the Burnaby NOW releasing salmon is an excellent way to get kids involved in a hands-on way and it gives them an experience they’ll long remember.
“It was also wonderful to engage children in events like this, given that they are our environmental stewards of the future,” Angelo said.
He thanked Isaac Nelson, a community advisor for the Salmonid Enhancement Program, which provided the juvenile chum salmon.
The federal program aims to rebuild vulnerable salmon stocks and improve fish habitat to sustain salmon.
Angelo, who was head of the fish and wildlife program at BCIT for many years before retiring in 2011, said BCIT has also been very supportive of the Guichon Creek streamkeepers’ long-term efforts to revive the stream.
He pointed to the recent construction of a fishway through the campus spillway, which lets salmon swim on their own, as an example; before the fishway was built, streamkeepers had to dip net salmon over an eight-foot-high spillway obstacle.
Angelo added: “Hopefully, in the fall of 2027, the children who participated in the event will be able to return to the creek and see some of the fish they released return as spawning adults!”
Gorgeous day to join renowned streamkeeper Mark Angelo and the children from BCIT Students Association Childcare to release some chum salmon into Guichon Creek! What a great way to foster a lifelong love of our natural environment and streams!🫶 pic.twitter.com/jKEgy8wbhK
— Burnaby Mayor's Office (@MayorofBurnaby) April 19, 2024
