The Fraser is one of the world’s great rivers. Historically it produced more salmon than any other place in North America. Its delta is one of the Pacific Coast’s largest and most important estuaries. It is the rearing and feeding grounds for over 50 species of fish, many of which play a crucial role in a foodweb that links fish, birds and marine mammals across thousands of kilometers of the Pacific Ocean.
Along with the Lower Fraser Fisheries Alliance, Raincoast is chairing a traditional session at the upcoming Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference April 19-22, 2020 Vancouver Convention Centre Vancouver BC. The session, Toward a …
Toward a vision for Ecological Resilience in the Lower Fraser River Read more »
Next week we are heading back to the Fraser Estuary to begin the next phase of our habitat restoration project. Today, the estuary is very fragmented by structures…
Sockeye fry in the estuary in August? We caught this little beauty in the estuary this morning, the first time we have ever captured a juvenile sockeye rearing in the …
Earlier this year we began the first phase of our five-year restoration project in the Fraser Estuary making breaches in the Steveston Jetty to allow young salmon access to Sturgeon …
Fraser Connectivity Project monitoring continues at our jetty breach locations yesterday! The west breach is looking great with a nice channel developing onto the foreshore, transporting freshwater, fine sediment and …
From Riley Finn’s blog: “I became interested in quantifying the lost streams in the Lower Fraser in my pursuit to understand what fraction of the historical salmon habitat of the …
Eric Perlett learning the ropes of the Fraser Connectivity Project!
Great to see DFO fisheries minister Wilkinson and minister Popham talking an interest in restoring the Fraser River watershed, thanks Fraser watershed initiative!
The Fraser is one of the world’s great rivers. Historically it produced more salmon than any other place in North America. ⠀⠀Given the importance of Fraser River salmon ecologically, culturally …
Putting lessons into practice! The Fraser Connectivity Project team started our marsh vegetation surveys this afternoon thanks to the id clinic we attended last week, put on by the very knowledgeable Dan Stewart. …
Thanks to everyone who came out tonight to learn about the road to recovery for the Southern Resident killer whales at the temple of stoke! It all starts with recovering …
We are continuing to see positive results for our habitat connectivity project in the Fraser Estuary. Young Salmon are still using the breaches we created in the Steveston Jetty to …
This is a picture of water flowing through one of our breaches of the Steveston jetty, note the rock on the right hand side blocking the water from flowing that …
We have completed (de)construction of three breaches of the Steveston Jetty. The Steveston Jetty is an 8 km long rock jetty which controls the position of the main arm of …
Juvenile salmon! Again today we are out sampling this time at our west breach and again we are seeing exactly what we hoped!
SUCCESS! Today we tried sampling one of our jetty breaches for the first time and in 45 minutes caught dozens of juvenile Chinook and chum salmon moving through the breach …
Caught our first juvenile salmon of the season this weekend! We found dozens of these little chum salmon fry in the North Arm of the Lower Fraser River yesterday, the …
First day of field work for the season! How cold is it Noah? 3 degrees! 😯 still happy to be out here!
Day 5 of restoration! We are working on the third of three breaches of the Steveston jetty and should be finished tomorrow!
Restoration in action! Working on the first of three jetty breaches in Steveston!
Today we placed a grid of small pvc pipes in the area to monitor changes in the area where we expect channels to form on Sturgeon Bank following the construction …
Fraser Connectivity Project: Construction Starts Monday! Read more »
We are excitedly moving towards construction of 3 breaches of the Steveston Jetty to restore natural outmigration pathways for juvenile salmon which provide access to critical brackish marsh habitats!!
Our 2018 field season for the Fraser River Estuary Connectivity project was five months long, with 76 days in the field and more than 35,000 fish sampled, including over 6,400 …
Field season for the Fraser River Estuary Connectivity project was five months long Read more »
The Heart of the Fraser. The vital stretch of the river between Mission and Hope, less than two hours drive from Vancouver, provides prime spawning habitat for salmon…
After a long five months we have now wrapped up our 2018 field season in the Fraser estuary, our best year yet! This year our team spent 76 days in the field and we captured more than 35,000 fish, including over 6,400 juvenile salmon. While it has been a long and hot season with a lot of early mornings and work weekends, I think everyone on the team is sad to see it come to an end.
The estuary is an incredibly beautiful setting that we never take for granted, where the herons, bald eagles, seals and seal lions are a more common sight than people, and the sunrise is always a little magical.
This year we had a new focus on our restoration goals, so we expanded our sampling areas to sites that we expect to restore. As part of our Fraser Connectivity Project, Raincoast is working with Fisheries and Oceans Canada over five years (2017-2022) to create new pathways for juvenile salmon through man made barriers that have restricted the connection between the river and its estuary for decades. While these barriers have stabilized the location of the mouth of the river and facilitated industrialization of the lower river and estuary, they have altered the natural movement of freshwater and sediments, and obstructed the nearshore migration pathways that juvenile salmon rely on to access important estuary habitats.
Mapping marsh islands in the Fraser Estuary today for the Fraser Connectivity Project and marsh recession!
