Our conservation projects are overseen by the Conservation and Enhancement Committee, currently chaired by Brian Comey. Our biggest, longest term project, and our pride and joy, is the Mackay Creek Hatchery.
We have 28,050 chum eggs this year. Now in the incubator for the next few months. This the some of crew setting up the equipment and preparing eggs to put in the incubator. This was on Wednesday October 26th
Brian
MacKay Creek Hatchery
The North Shore Fish & Game Club started from an ad in the Citizen newspaper around 1956, calling for anyone interesting in hunting and fishing and the environment to attend a meeting of like-minded people. It was well attended and the club grew from there. Some of the club members lived around the MacKay creek area and developed a love for the creek and surrounding area. They started to realize that the creek had been subject to environmental abuse and the lack of fish was likely due to pollution. They
decided to try to do something about it.
In 1981 one of the club members, who was an Industrial Arts teacher at one of the North Shore high schools, decided to make a wood incubation system as a class project. Once completed the club members installed it along the bank of MacKay Creek. This little hatchery raised Coho Salmon for many
years. In the fall of 2003 the creek went into flood which broke up and smashed the wooden structure.
That hatchery is gone but the wild Coho that still thrive in upper MacKay Creek are descendants of the earlier population of these fish.
In 2005 the Department of Oceans and Fisheries, with the support of the North Shore Fish & Game Club made an agreement with the City of North Vancouver which allowed us to set up an incubation system attached to the north end of the washroom at Heywood Park. This chain link enclosure allowed us to access power to run our equipment to pump water from the creek into our system. There we raised 30,000 Chum Salmon per year until we got permission from the City of North Vancouver to expand our
operations to the south end of the washroom.
In 2011 we fundraised and many generous donors helped us create a larger space with updated equipment. In this new hatchery we now raise 30,000 Chum Salmon per year and 40,000 to 50,000 Pink Salmon every second year.
We are proud of the fact that we have seen many salmon return to the creek each year, to naturally carry on the cycle of life.
Annually hatchery volunteers oversee the incubation of the salmon eggs from gestation through to the fry stage when they are released in March through a variety of public events. Smaller school and community groups release some of the fry through educational programs in the spring. The highlight of the hatchery operations is when we release the fry in a family friendly event with the NSFG Club members their families and friends, and the general public. This is always a well-attended event with lots of children participating, running back and forth from the hatchery to the creek, releasing their pails of fish into MacKay Creek. These children start to care about the creek and the life of the fish.
Unfortunately due to COVID 19 protocols it will not be possible to hold a public release this year. We are exploring other options to engage the public in the release.
This Hatchery is operated by a group of very committed and dedicated volunteers under the guidance of our DFO community advisor and a support person. All of our volunteers are members of North Shore
Fish & Game Club and are required by the City of North Vancouver to have the 3rd. Party Liability Insurance provided by the club membership to be active in the hatchery operations.
Nesting Boxes
The Conservation and Enhancement Committee also have a nesting box project throughout the lower MacKay Creek, from the north end of Heywood Park down to the estuary at Burrard Inlet. Sections of this area have been under major renovations so some of the bird houses have been temporarily removed, to be reinstalled at the end of the estuary project.
SIMDeer Project
The Southern Interior Mule Deer Project is a multi-year, multi-participant collaboration. The goal is to answer the key question of how landscape change affects mule deer and the predator‐prey community.
It’s common knowledge that both funding and science are lacking in the management of BC’s wildlife. The SIMDeer Project addresses the science side of this challenge by involving world class wildlife scientists like Dr. Adam Ford (UBC Okanagan), Dr. Sophie Gilbert (U of Idaho).
The study focuses on the Kettle (8‐14, 8‐15), Peachland/Garnet Valley (8‐08, 8‐11), and the Elephant Hill Fire (3‐29, 3‐30) areas. Does and fawns are collared, captured, tested for pregnancy and other factors, and causes of mortality are tracked.
Funding is addressed by partners like North Shore Fish and Game. We donated the cost of one of the collars used in the SIMDeer project (they cost in the area of $1400 dollars each). There are lots of other partners!