By the Campbell River Mirror

June 19, 2009

Mia Parker (from left) of Grieg Seafoods BC, Sharon DeDominicis of Marine Harvest Canada, Dave Ewart of the Quinsam Hatchery, Laurie Jensen of Mainstream Canada, Elan Downey and Alexandra Eaves of the BC CAHS display a plankton net used for environmental monitoring. Mia Parker (from left) of Grieg Seafoods BC, Sharon DeDominicis of Marine Harvest Canada, Dave Ewart of the Quinsam Hatchery, Laurie Jensen of Mainstream Canada, Elan Downey and Alexandra Eaves of the BC CAHS display a plankton net used for environmental monitoring.

Thanks to donations from local aquaculture companies, and from the Pacific Salmon Foundation, the BC Centre for Aquatic Health Sciences plankton monitoring project can continue.

The project hopes to answer two important questions: what do young salmon eat, and is there enough food for them when they leave the rivers and streams and enter the ocean? These are two very important questions if you are trying to increase the number of salmon in our local waters, and in 2007 the Quinsam Hatchery approached the BC Centre for Aquatic Health Sciences about how to do just that. That’s how the Discovery Passage Plankton Monitoring and Juvenile Salmon Assessment project began, in partnership with DFO and Atlegay Fisheries Society.