The Sunshine Coast Salmonid Enhancement Society is a charitable organization dedicated to sustaining and building salmon stocks in local waterways and facilitating public education regarding salmonid habitat and life cycles.
Spring 2026 Operations Update
As of April 17, 2026, the juvenile salmon we have on site are,
- 22,000, 2024 brood Coho pre-smolts, these will be released to Chapman Creek in either May or June, 2026.
- 63,800, 2025 brood Chinook fry, these will be released to Chapman Creek in either May or June, 2026.
- 7,350, 2025 brood Coho fry, these will be released to Chapman Creek in either May or June, 2027.
- 2,790, 2025 brood Chum fry, these will be released to Chapman Creek in by May, 2026.
2025/2026 Hatchery projects –
- Upgrading our 40+ year old main hatchery buildings inefficient heating and lighting systems to newer, more efficient options, and also possibly replacing/upgrading the windows on it too.
- Building some light duty frame/s, possibly portable, that can fit over our fish rearing containers. These will be used provide shade for the salmon in the opened top rearing tanks using shade cloth. Our hatchery rearing area is out in the open with no natural tree cover to provide any kind of mid day shade for the salmon. The shade cloth can be easily attached to these frames to be used to simulate this lack of tree cover. This will benefit the fish by keeping the rearing tanks shaded mid day and slightly cooler during our summer hot spells.
- The hatchery settling pond old wire fence has been replaced with a new chain-link fence. Some repairs to the rearing area fence will be happening in the near future.
- Our Education Building has been upgraded, new doors installed, new concrete pavers installed for the outside covered picnic area, new lighting in and out and new paint.
- Our open walled workshop carport is now closed in, this provides a larger enclosed workspace for hatchery maintenance equipment and projects.
- Our volunteers and community garden project, last spring we have added 4 unused small fish rearing containers converted over for growing vegetables.
- One of our rearing containers aeration towers was recently upgraded.
2026 Salmon Return Predictions & Outlook: DFO link is below
Below is a breakdown on last summer and fall’s adult returns to the creek and hatchery, along with close to current incubation numbers from last falls spawning-
- Pink – a high number of adults returned to spawn this past season, over 11,100. The odd year returns are dominant. For instance, 2 years ago in 2023 a total of over 14,000 adults were counted. This past season the first Pinks showed up in the creek the last week of July, 2025. We only managed to collect Pink eggs from 3 females for the hatchery this past season, producing 3,800 eggs in incubation. The reason for this is due to 2 things, low creek flows, and high water temperatures. This causes a lack of available water for hatchery trapping and adult holding. Only odd year enhancement is allowed for Chapman creek Pink salmon. (2025, 2027, 2029, etc.).
- Coho returns in 2025 was fairly average with an estimated total of 375 adults returning to the creek and 241 of these returning to the hatchery’s adult trap. The first Coho was trapped at the hatchery late July. We have collected 43,100 eggs so far with a few more females left to spawn.
- Chum (Chapman Creek) returns are below average, 60 fish were estimated spawning in the creek, the hatchery tally was 8 with only 3 being females. The first Chum were seen in the creek mid Oct. We collected 4,600 eggs as we only managed to spawn 2 of 3 females.
- Chum (Angus Creek) returns are below average, 18 fish were estimated spawning in the creek as of mid November. We did not collect any of these for eggs this year.
- Chinook returns to the creek were slightly below average, a total of 10 fish were known to be angled from the creek this season and natural spawning numbers are very low. The first Chinook adult was seen in the creek the last week of Sept. Chinook are not native to Chapman Creek and are introduced annually. 64,800 eyed Chinook eggs arrived here November 21st from the Chilliwack River Hatchery, located in the Lower Mainland’s Fraser Valley. The adults that produced these eggs were spawned on Oct 18/25.
