Latest News

Early spring has been busy at Salmon Coast.  During Easter weekend, we enjoyed attending the Echo Bay Reunion at our neighbour Billy Proctor's place and were happy to welcome SCFS Founder and Director Alex Morton and her daughter for a weekend visit.  We've also hosted and attended a number of potlucks, making the most of our neighbour's company before the spring season gets too busy.

We've been preparing the gardens and greenhouse, planting early crops, and working on cleaning and maintenance projects in preparation for our first group of researchers and volunteers, who will arrive early next week. One researcher is working with BAMP Sea Lice Monitoring, another is helping with both our ongoing Sea Lice Project and analysis of last year's Plankton Project samples, and a young volunteer is coming to assist us with the Sea Lice Monitoring Project as well as the many spring chores at the station.

Sampling for the Sea Lice Monitoring Project continues weekly.  The juvenile salmon are beginning to leave the rivers - during the last two trips we have caught and inspected hundreds of juvenile pink and chum salmon at two local sites.  The photo on the right shows a beach seine for juvenile salmon under ideal conditions - calm water and great visibility!

We look forward to welcoming researchers and volunteers to the station over the next few months.  Please get in touch with us with any questions or comments, and to let us know if you'd like to do research, visit  or volunteer at the station.

Happy Spring from Salmon Coast!  The daffodils have finally begun to bloom, and the spring season has begun with several sampling trips for our long-term Sea Lice Study, started by Alex Morton in 2001 and continued by many volunteers over the years to keep tabs on sea lice loads on outmigrating juvenile salmon in our area.  We look forward to welcoming more researchers and volunteers to the station over the next few months as the season continued to ramp up.  New research projects are welcome!

Please note that the Research Volunteer position posted here previously (with the Queen Charlotte Strait Pilot Sea Lice Study) has been filled.  Thank you to all applicants for their inquiries. 

Any new research volunteer opportunities will be posted here, and general station volunteers who can cover their own costs are always welcome to apply.  Contact us with questions about volunteering, research projects, or any other topic. 

Ph.D candidate Stephanie Peacock is looking for a second volunteer research assistant to join her pilot sea lice study in Queen Charlotte Strait.  The project will be based out of Salmon Coast Field Station and will run from June 11th to 25th, 2012.  Please see our Volunteer Opportunities page for more information.

During the winter "off season", we've been working on some additions and updates to this website.  Check out our new User Testimonials webpage, our updated Station User Fees, and our new User Handbook and Safety and Emergency documents.  You may notice other changes as you browse through other parts of our website.  We hope these changes have helped our website become more clear and up-to-date.  Send any comments to info@salmoncoast.org.  Enjoy!

Click here to check out our latest newsletter.  It includes updates on activities at the station this summer and fall, plans for next season, a new featured volunteer article, and an update on SCFS's pilot Plankton Project.  Enjoy!

By Marie-Josée Gagnon, Project Biologist

When it comes to marine conservation and appreciation, plankton is often overlooked. The dark cold waters of the Pacific Northwest are rich in life as they dissolve more oxygen and nutrients and are better circulated than tropical waters due to the current caused by large tidal exchanges. As the fuel of the food chain, plankton thrives in these conditions. Accordingly, it can be largely accredited for the impressive abundance and diversity of marine organisms observed in the Broughton Archipelago.

Despite this oceanic abundance, Pink and Chum populations in the Broughton Archipelago have experienced sharp declines in the past 20 years with low marine survival identified among the potential primary causes. Most notably, zooplankton dynamics are a determining factor in the early survivorship, year-class strength as well as carrying capacity of salmon populations.

Salmon Coast Field Station began the zooplankton dynamics and juvenile salmon diet study in the spring of 2010.  This June marked the successful completion of both our second field season and zooplankton processing for 2010 samples. Factoring in potential influences from temperature, salinity, and salmon aquaculture, this long-term monitoring survey will investigate how springtime plankton dynamics in the Broughton Archipelago influence the survival of juvenile pink and chum salmon.

This coming winter, I hope to undertake the processing of stomach samples from our first season as well as the identification and enumeration of zooplankton samples from our second season (funding pending). Given the critical importance of plankton dynamics to the basic understanding of early marine survival of salmon populations, we remain committed to finding the resources that will allow the renewal of the field sampling effort this spring.

Project Background:

Our objectives are:

1. to conduct weekly surveys of epibenthic zooplankton population density and composition from March to June along local juvenile salmon migration routes.

2. to obtain and preserve stomach content samples of the juvenile pink and chum that would be feeding on the plankton during our project period in order to relate zooplankton abundance, distribution and composition to pink and chum juvenile salmon diet.

Collaboration with other research projects may also allow us to relate of zooplankton biomass and abundance to juvenile salmon distribution.

While significant attention has been given to salmon farms and the effects of parasites and disease on the survival of salmon populations in the Broughton Archipelago, few studies have focused on food abundance and the diet of these fish. Yet insight into the ocean productivity and early marine ecology of juvenile salmon is a critical step towards identifying limiting factors to their recovery. We therefore believe that this long-term monitoring survey is essential for planning conservation and rehabilitation efforts in this area.

We are grateful to biologists that have worked on the project thus far, including Mark Spoljaric, Kevin Hall, Jon Hill, Alex Spicer, Amy McConnell, Luke Rogers, Megan Adams and Jessica Krohner. We also thank Eamon Miyagi (DFO) and Sarah Haney for their generous in-kind and financial contributions. Lastly, I thank Moira Galbraith for generously donating her time and effort throughout these past two years. Moira’s contribution has been invaluable for the confirmation of my plankton identifications and analysis of the associated database.

Best wishes to all in these holiday times, with hopes of coming back this spring with an updated progress report.

Marie-Josée Gagnon

McGill University (B.Sc.)

Fall is in the air now at the station. We are still having many beautiful days and spectacular sunsets, but the odd spells of rainy weather and stronger winds are giving us a taste of what’s to come. The gardens are winding down, except of course the ever-present kale, which is going strong. September was a busy month here - we had visits from friends and relatives, many fishing expeditions, continued work on firewood, brushing and putting the gardens to bed, and MESSS salmon enumeration stream walking is ongoing. Zephyr found an excellent babysitter (her father John) to help with Salix so she could leave the station to attend the Cohen Commission Aquaculture and Disease hearings in which Alexandra Morton spoke in early September. Our electrician, Mike Geldreich, visited in late September and helped us get our off-the-grid power system back in good shape. Coady and Salix helped her grandfather sail his boat back to Read Island (our previous home, another very small island community) in late September, and we continue to stay in frequent contact with our friends there– several have already visited the station and Zephyr and Salix are hoping to attend the annual Halloween festivities on Read while Coady mans the station.

There have been quite a few large mammal sightings recently - transient orcas were spotted passing the station on at least three occasions, as well as a solitary humpback whale. Each time we travel through Blackfish Sound on the way to Port McNeill we’ve seen many humpbacks, and one foggy day a group of Pacific White Side Dolphins rode the bow wake on John’s sailboat as we headed back to the station with a delighted group of visitors. On land, we’ve chased off a non-threatening but pesky bear several times, and one of the station users saw a cougar on the porch in late September - we’ve been on high alert since, of course. We are preparing ourselves for more indoor pursuits as the fall progresses and the weather gets colder, rainier and windier. Zephyr will be learning how to work on this website in early October, so stay posted for new photos, documents, and text and more news updates!

We were lucky to have many wonderful and helpful visitors this spring and summer. We would especially like to thank:

• Dr. Neil Fraser and Pauline MacNeil for their many wise words and generous help around the station, including fixing boats, painting the bathroom, cleaning, organizing, and helping in the kitchen. Neil also provided invaluable problem-solving and mentoring for young researchers working on mathematical modelling and ecology.
• Beth and Peter Adams (parents of Megan Adams) for all their help organizing the workshop, tool shed, storage areas on the dock, and our linen system, and for burning our giant burn pile, helping with meals and events, and contributing with in-kind donations.
• Paul and Draha Krkosek (parents of Dr. Martin Krkosek) for all their help with organization, infrastructure improvements (stairs), meals, and dishes.
• Sarah Haney, one of our founders, and her partner Alan Calderwood for their continuing strong and generous support.
• Mark Worthing and Jesse Howardson for their gardening help, as well as provision of plant starts and seeds.
• Marjorie Wonham for the donation of valuable digital scientific references.                     
• Billy Proctor for firewood provision and for mentoring the construction of a hand-logger shack in which many station volunteers have been involved.
• Eric Eder and Cathy Patterson on the “Maggie K” for providing wonderful musical entertainment and for babysitting the daughter of the new coordinators!
• Ivan Gettings for his generous contributions of GPS units for our research programs.
• Claude and Carmen Gagnon for all their help cleaning and organizing.

Other notable visitors this spring included Brian Gunn, the president of the Wilderness Tourism Association and owner/operator of Strathcona Lodge, who stopped by to talk about the sea-lice situation, and Stan Proboszcz, a biologist from Watershed Watch who is working on the BAMP sea-lice monitoring project. We also enjoyed the company of Brendan Connor’s family during the Director’s Retreat Weekend, particularly his very happy eight-month-old son, Cohen. In July, Jill and Richard on the “Paspatoo” and their crew, Tom and Sue Gilbert, and their daughter Tanny, on the “Amathea”, and Amanda and Barry Glickman on the “Papa Rumba” all tied up to our dock and joined us for lively dinners and discussions.

Even with the spring research crowd gone, we have had a busy summer here. Coady and Zephyr have been getting to know the station in more detail, starting various projects, and prioritizing for the future. Some of the weeks, our dock was full of folks who boated in to say hi, and we have enjoyed many meals with these visitors and others in the community.

Our daughter Salix has been adjusting well and has become very good friends with the wonderful children at Blackfish Lodge. We trade babysitting with them as often as possible, to the great benefit of both sets of parents.
Jenni Schine, a researcher who was here earlier in the spring working with Billy, came back for a fun work visit in early August. Scott Rogers, the previous Station Coordinator, also returned from her summer vacation.

The weather has finally turned around and we have begun to enjoy the veggies from the garden (mainly peas, tomatoes, very small zucchinis, and copious amounts of delicious kale), as well as the berries and fruit on and nearby the property (raspberries, huckleberries, cherries, and now blueberries, salal berries, and thimbleberries).

And the salmon are coming! Lately we have been eating salmon of one species or another for most dinners and are starting to put away canned salmon for the winter and spring. In early August, we were treated to the sight of a large group of Pacific White-sided Dolphins leaping and splashing right out in front of the station two evenings in a row and, several days later, we saw a group of transient orcas pass by, one large male and three smaller individuals. With the salmon came another visitor, Salix's grandpa John, who sailed up to play with his granddaughter (and help out in general).

We are looking forward to the rest of the summer here and to the excitement of the fall salmon season. We are also happy that Scott will be hanging around to work on the fall Salmon Enumeration for MESSS and to help answer the many questions about the station that we've thought of over the summer.

Click here to read the latest version of our SCFSS semi-annual newsletter! You'll learn about our latest projects, hear from our fantastic new Station Coordinators, and get an inside glimpse into what it's really like to be one of our field researchers.