Burnaby streams see 'pretty decent' salmon run after years of rehabilitation

At nearly 70 years of age, Mark Angelo is still filled with delight when he sees salmon swimming up the streams in Burnaby, B.C., where he lives.

"It's very, very special, and we're very lucky to live in a city where we can see things like that," said Angelo, chair and founder of World Rivers Day.

The creeks suffered major damage and pollution throughout the history of urban development in the region, but salmon have been returning in recent years, along with all of the life that depends on them.

This year, Angelo said there were concerns in mid-October, when the annual salmon run got off to a slow start, but now as it wraps up, it's clear that it was another good year — not the biggest, but "pretty decent."

"A lot of the streams we saw fish return to are streams where there has been a lot of restoration work unfold over the last number of years. So to see salmon return in decent numbers is incredibly exciting," said Angelo.

In Stoney Creek, he said more than 1,000 chum salmon were counted, along with a few coho. At the dam and fishway where Burnaby Lake drains into the Brunette River, another 600-700 fish were counted. Those salmon make their way into several streams, including Still Creek, Beecher Creek, Eagle Creek and Guichon Creek.

Though the numbers in the small streams are modest compared to the scale of the Fraser River run and others in the province, the success of the local salmon runs — and the hope they bring — are in stark contrast to the staggeringly low Fraser sockeye run this year.

That run saw the lowest return in the 127 years records have been kept. It came in at less than a third of what had been expected, with an estimated 283,000 sockeye.

But in Burnaby, and other local streams in Metro Vancouver, it's been good news, according to Angelo.

"There's no coincidence that we're seeing anything from raptors to other predators — I came across a mink feeding on a salmon carcass the other day on Guichon Creek," he said, adding that the salmon die and break down into nutrients that feed the entire ecosystem.

"Guichon Creek was a stream that, a few decades ago was in dire straits, but we were involved in a major effort to try to restore that and bring it back to life and now every fall we get a substantial number of chum salmon return to that creek to spawn, which is wonderful to see," said Angelo.

He said a network of people who work to protect streams — streamkeepers — has developed in recent decades. Forty or 50 years ago when Angelo began work as a streamkeeper, he said it was a bit of a lonely world.

But Angelo said there's always threats to the streams and rivers, despite the successes he and other advocates have enjoyed.

"There's always challenges when you deal with waterways," he said. "You're always worried about new developments. You're always worried about the potential for spill events."

Angelo's battle is never over, but he said the health of the local streams that has been won shouldn't be taken for granted.

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