2022 Salmon Egg-Take!

January 02, 2023

What is a Salmon Egg-Take?

It seems appropriate to start a new year with gratitude. Thank you to the salmon!

So how do we do an egg-take, and why is it important?

Here's a 1 minute video for those answers and more!

This year we harvested between 10 and 12 thousand eggs to incubate in our hatchery, to be witnessed by our program participants as they transform into salmon fry and are released back into spawning channels in Spring of 2023. Though not all of these babies will make it back to spawn again, we will at least have nurtured them through one hard season to start off with higher numbers than they would have in the wild. Hopefully, more of them survive the oceans, predators and pollution to come back and lay their eggs in 4 years time.

History of Cheakamus Spawning Channels

The Cheakamus Centre has worked with many other partners such as Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), Fish & Wildlife Compensation Program (BC Hydro), Squamish Watershed Society, and Squamish Nation since 1981 to restore the historic salmon habitat throughout the property. These habitats support thousands of spawning chum, coho, pink, chinook, steelhead and sockeye salmon each season; a delight to behold and a reason to visit nearby rivers and streams between August and February each year.

The Nuuchahnulth First Nations have a saying, “hišukiš c̓awaak”, which means “everything is one and interconnected”. Salmon are proof of this statement - they feed the trees that fortify the forest floor and keep the rivers themselves intact. So if we want strong forests and clean air, we also have to keep our salmon; and that is why providing experiential education in a hatchery has stayed a priority for the Cheakamus Centre!

What can YOU do to protect Salmon from your home?

You can join, donate or volunteer with one of the many organizations supporting salmon habitats and wild fisheries in our region. The Squamish River Watershed Society and The Pacific Salmon Foundation are non-profit environmental organizations dedicated to the conservation and restoration of wild Pacific salmon in the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh/Squamish Watershed and Átl’ka7tsem/Howe Sound. We are grateful to these organizations for their continued support of the salmon teaching hatchery and restored spawning habitats at Cheakamus Centre.

Become a Friend of Cheakamus! Check out ways you can support the Cheakamus Centre directly through the Cheakamus Foundation for Environmental Learning