Fishing, Food, Nature, Society, Streamkeeping, Sustainability

PM Carney, You’re Attacking Volunteers

UPDATE March 31, 2026

The government has released A Force of Nature: Canada’s Strategy to Protect Nature. It will take time to digest, but apparently includes funding to continue or evolve the Pacific Salmon Strategy Initiative. How that will affect the current cuts and layoffs in streamkeeping-related programs remains to be seen.

If this is good news, as we hope it is, it sure has been a weird process with not anywhere near the communication needed along the way.

Original post:

In these dire days, let’s remember that our Canadian government and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has relied upon thousands of volunteers in British Columbia in the Salmonid Enhancement Program.

A program with over 40 years of success.

Volunteer streamkeepers. Volunteers running small restoration hatcheries.

The Harper government tried to kill SEP, and now the Carney government is at it in the name of budgetary restrictions.

Please tell me about another Canadian government program that for over 40 years has relied on over 10,000 volunteers for its success at minimal cost.

Stock assessment, education, fry trapping, invasive species removal, restoration, juvenile fish rearing and releases. . .

Folks who have been volunteering are afraid and disillusioned. Groups and registered societies are in shock.

It’s often said that salmon are a keystone species. It’s often said that salmon are the lifeblood of First Nations in BC.

And it’s often true that the Canadian federal government apparently doesn’t care. . . .

SEP Community Patch Salmonid Enhancement

Nature, Photography

Great Blue Heron Colony Forming in Fraser Foreshore Park?

So I’m strolling along Fraser Foreshore Park with my big lens, and a woman stops me and asks if I know where the herons are nesting. I replied that while I see herons in the park regularly, I wasn’t aware they were nesting there.

Five minutes further down the path, and dang if I don’t see a Great Blue Heron building a nest! 🙂

I’ve seen groups of up to seven or eight herons hanging out in these trees, but I’ve never seen herons nesting in the area. Perhaps a little colony is forming?

Will have to keep an eye out and see if they continue to stay in the area, and if more nests are built.

Great Blue Heron building nest in Fraser Foreshore Park in Burnaby, BC

Nature, Photography, Streamkeeping

Coho Fry Photographed in Byrne Creek in Burnaby, BC

Yumi and I got some shots of Coho fry today that have hatched out in Byrne Creek in Burnaby, BC.

NOTE: Streamkeepers ID fry under Dept. of Fisheries auspices.

We hold the wee tykes in a jar just long enough to get a few photos and release them unharmed back into the creek.

At this stage, they are only about 5 – 6cm long.

Coho fry in Byrne Creek in Burnaby, BC

It’s wonderful to get a positive ID, and know that the spawning salmon that returned to “our” battered urban creek last autumn succeeded in launching a new generation.

Streamkeeping, sustainability, community, business, photography, books, and animals, with occasional forays into social commentary. Text and Photos © Paul Cipywnyk