It hasn’t cost much money over the years, but the project’s value could be much more than anyone really knows. The B.C. Centre for Aquatic Health Sciences has been conducting the Discovery Passage Plankton Monitoring and Juvenile Salmon Assessment project for five years. Donations from local organizations, ranging up to $10,000, have helped keep the program going.

It hasn’t cost much money over the years, but the project’s value could be much more than anyone really knows. The B.C. Centre for Aquatic Health Sciences has been conducting the Discovery Passage Plankton Monitoring and Juvenile Salmon Assessment project for five years. Donations from local organizations, ranging up to $10,000, have helped keep the program going.

That’s not much when you consider how important the program could prove to be. Quinsam River Hatchery manager Dave Ewart says the data has helped the facility better understand food abundance and hence the best timing for release of coho fry into the wild. Already they have discovered it would be best to let the small fish go at intervals during the spring, instead of doing one mass release.

But without someone, somewhere, stepping up, the project could come to an end. That would be tragic.

This is a made-in-Campbell River project that could have applications coast-wide. Its basic concept and use right now has been for hatchery-raised fish and improving their survival. But it could very well uncover some vital information that could lead to a healthier and more robust wild salmon population.