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'Very hopeful': Syilx Okanagan keep eyes and ears out as sockeye salmon return to Upper Columbia
Biologists say the return supports a larger reintroduction effort as monitoring stations track adult sockeye and help gauge habitat readiness for future releases.
- The Okanagan Nation Alliance recorded an adult sockeye in an Arrow Lakes tributary, marking the first such sighting since 1938. Biologists confirmed the fish through acoustic monitoring and video recording.
- For six years, the ONA has experimented with releasing salmon fry, smolt, and adults upstream of Hugh Keenleyside Dam and Brilliant Dam near Castlegar. These efforts aim to restore salmon to historic Canadian Columbia waters.
- Fisheries biologist Patrick Zubick maintains a network of 26 acoustic monitoring stations upstream of Hugh Keenleyside Dam, detecting salmon at a 69 kilohertz threshold. This technology tracks tagged sockeye movement through juvenile and adult phases.
- The evidence "moves the conversation from theoretical feasibility to the potential of verified habitat readiness," the ONA told Black Press Media. The Upper Columbia remains suitable spawning habitat for salmon separated from it for generations.
- Chief Keith Crow of the Lower Similkameen Indian Band described the reintroduction as a "one-river approach," hoping his grandchildren will one day fish freely in the Upper Columbia. The ONA hosted a salmon warrior gathering late last week in Penticton and Oliver.
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'Very hopeful': Syilx Okanagan keep eyes and ears out as sockeye salmon return to Upper Columbia - Vanderhoof Omineca Express
On a sunny Sept. 18 in Revelstoke, Patrick Zubick clambered out onto an uprooted tree off the Illecillewaet River and hoisted out a brick with a small wired device inside. A fisheries biologist for the Okanagan Nation Alliance (ONA) — the tribal council of the Syilx Okanagan Nation — Zubick drove three-and-a-half hours from Castlegar to check on a network of underwater acoustic monitoring stations that track sockeye salmon in the Upper Columbia …
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