Sunshine Coast Salmonid Enhancement Society

The Sunshine Coast Salmonid Enhancement Society is a non-profit organization dedicated to sustaining and building salmon stocks in local waterways and facilitating public education regarding salmonid habitat and life cycles.

Spring 2025 Operations Update

As of late June 2025, the juvenile salmon we have on site are,

• 36,700 Coho fry, these will be released to Chapman Creek in either May or June, 2026, next year.

2025 Hatchery projects –

• The replacement of our settling pond fence and repairs to the rearing area fence.
• The hatcheries Education Building is being upgraded.
• Covered picnic area is being upgraded with sand and concrete pavers.
• Our open walled workshop carport is going to be closed in, this will provide a larger enclosed workspace for the hatchery.
• Our volunteers and community garden project is taking shape with a number of unused small fish rearing containers converted over for growing vegetables.

In July 2024 our new backup generator was commissioned by the supplier and is now fully operational, from this point forward the pumped groundwater used for fish rearing will continue to flow in the event of any power failures.

Last summer and fall’s 2024 adult returns to the creek and hatchery along with incubation from spawning-

• Pink – a high number of adults returned this past season, over 2,000. The even year returns are non-dominant and numbers are normally low, 0 to as many as 60 fish on average. For instance, 3 years ago in 2022 a total of 9 adults were counted. This past season the first Pinks showed up in the creek the last week of July, 2024. We did not collect any Pink eggs this past season, this is due to Dept of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) hatchery regulations, only odd year collection is allowed for Chapman creek. (2025, 2027, etc.).
• Coho returns in 2024 rivaled some of the highest recorded, numbers were 2,000+ with 745 of these returning to the hatchery’s adult trap. The first Coho were seen in the creek mid August. We collected 56,597 eggs.
• Chum (Chapman Creek) returns are below average, 70 fish were estimated spawning in the creek, the hatchery tally was 9 with only 2 being females. The first Chum were seen in the creek mid Oct. We collected 1,800 eggs as we only managed to spawn one of the 2 females.
• Chum (Angus Creek) returns are below average, only a few fish were estimated spawning in the creek as of mid November. We collected 2,700 eggs as we only managed to spawn one 1 viable female.
• Chinook returns to the creek were slightly below average, a total of 9 fish were seen. The first Chinook adult was seen in the creek the second week of Sept. Chinook are not native to Chapman Creek and are introduced annually as smolts. 70,424 eyed Chinook eggs arrived here in mid November from the Chilliwack River Hatchery in the Lower Mainland’s Fraser Valley.

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