Story by Mark Hume with Photography by Nick Didlick

Fisheries scientists working on a small river in British Columbia have found a way to dramatically increase the freshwater survival rates of wild salmon and steelhead.

At a time when wild salmon populations around the world are in decline, largely because of poor ocean conditions, the Keogh River on northern Vancouver Island is growing not only bigger fish, but more of them.

The findings have generated such excitement that the government will soon be asked to consider an ambitious, multi-million dollar project that would see the methods applied to at least 10 key salmon streams in the province.

One proposal calls for $10 million a year in each of the next 10 years to give Pacific salmon stocks on the West Coast a major boost by dramatically increasing the freshwater output of spawning streams.

Working on the Keogh, researchers found that by combining stream enhancement techniques with fertilization, they can get a dramatic spike in survival rates.

Mayfly, stonefly and caddis fly populations have also exploded on the river, while resident cutthroat trout and Dolly Varden are getting more numerous and growing larger too.

“I think we’ve found the silver bullet,” says Ken Ashley, of the B.C. Ministry of Fisheries, who is overseeing the Keogh project being headed by his colleague, steelhead biologist, Bruce Ward.

For the past 25 years Mr. Ward has been working on the tea-colored river that pours down out of the mountains on northern Vancouver Island, flowing into Queen Charlotte Strait near the town of Port Hardy.

Because the river has a fish fence near the mouth that counts all the fish coming either in or out of the watershed, the Keogh has long been used to track trends in wild salmon and steelhead stocks.

Heavily logged over the past century, its habitat degraded, the Keogh has traced a pattern that’s all too familiar on the Pacific Coast. Stocks have been in free fall - and for the past several years there have been so few steelhead spawners that biologists felt extinction was inevitable.

Ocean survival rates for steelhead dropped from 15% to 4% a few years ago - and with only 100 spawners returning, instead of 1,000 - it seemed like the Keogh stock was on its way to oblivion.

Then scientists last year noted a remarkable turn around was taking place in the river. Algae growth took hold on the normally bare rock bottom, heavy insect hatches began appearing everywhere and the numbers of coho and steelhead smolts migrating out of the system in May suddenly jumped.

A control stream, the Waukwaas, in an adjacent watershed showed none of these changes.
And not only were there more smolts in the Keogh - but the fish were all bigger, increasing their chances of surviving at sea.

This spring, scientists are getting proof that 1999 was no fluke - the Keogh has started to boom.

“Two years ago, it was all doom and gloom,” said Mr. Ward in a streamside interview this spring. “As far as wild salmon on this system, and throughout the Pacific Northwest, I would have said, ‘It’s over folks.’ Now I’m feeling differently. . . This is very exciting. I think we’re right on the verge of an explosion of fish.”

As he talked, Don McCubbing a fisheries consultant on the project, and Lloyd Burroughs a stream technician, used a dip net to ladle fish out of a trap at the Keogh fence, near the high tide mark.

Im May, coho and steelhead smolts in rivers from California to Alaska begin their mass migration to the sea. In most salmon rivers there has been a continued downward trend in stocks.

On the Keogh, the numbers are going the other way.

Last year the Keogh’s coho smolt yield doubled to 53,000 fish and steelhead doubled to 2,000. In mid-May, Mr. McCubbing made a bold bet in the office pool on what this year’s count of wild fish will be.

“I’m predicting 100,000 coho,” he said. “And I’m saying we’ll get 3,000 steelhead.”

Mr. McCubbing dumped a net full of writhing smolts into a holding tank. The fish were robust and fat.

Compared to fish in the nearby Waukwaas, Keogh coho smolts are 16% heavier; steelhead fry are 50% heavier and 11% longer.

Keogh smolts are now migrating to sea as two year olds, instead of at age three.
About 2,000 coho and steelhead smolts had moved into the trap that night. Mixed in with them were some 8-10 inch cutthroat and Dolly Varden. Resident cutthroat now are typically around one pound, double their past average weight. And although trout and char stocks haven’t been counted, they are thriving.

“It’s noticeable,” said Mr. McCubbing. “Cutthroat are everywhere in the system. And the Dolly Varden population has done even better - they have taken off.”

In the pool above the fence, smolts were jumping out of the water after Mayflies.

“The increase in aquatic insects has been really noticeable,” said Mr. McCubbing. “Sometimes when you’re working on the fence now you have to stop to wipe the stoneflies off your face.”

In the Pacific Northwest, where steep mountains and heavy rainfalls combine to produce streams with extremely low nutrient levels, heavy insect hatches are rare. Often, you can turn over hundreds of stones before finding a nymph.

On the Keogh they seem to cling to every rock.

The fish and aquatic insects are thriving for the same reasons. Habitat restoration work - which includes taking out logging roads - has stabilized water flows in the river and reduced the sediment level. Rearing habitat has been created where once there were straight chutes of water.

At the same time an innovative fertilization project has increased the nutrient level, in an attempt to replace the nitrogen and phosphorous that historically was brought into the watershed by huge salmon runs.

Overfishing, habitat degradation and oceanic conditions have combined on the Pacific Coast to dramatically reduce the number of spawning salmon returning to any given stream. Each of those salmon died after spawning, and their decomposing bodies returned valuable nutrients to the watershed.

Without those runs of fish, the watersheds basically went unfertilized. Aquatic vegetation declined, insect populations dropped - and small fish went hungry. Survival rates fell for salmon, trout and steelhead fry, leading to further nutrient declines.

On the Keogh biologists have been adding a little over one ton of fertilizer for the past two years. The fertilizer comes in small blocks that look like barbecue briquettes.

Technicians carry the material in backpacks to sprinkle it in riffles from one end of the 35 kilometre stream to the other. They make the placement once a year, in the spring.
“The success we’re seeing in the Keogh is because of a whole combination of things,” said Mr. Ward. “But fertilization seems to be the key. That has been the trigger for what we’re witnessing here.”

Mr. McCubbing, who recently moved to B.C. from England, said his colleagues at home are surprised to hear he’s pouring nitrogen and phosphorous into a salmon stream.

“Over there they call it pollution,” he said. “But it’s working here. The results can’t be argued with.”

He said the ultimate goal should be to restore salmon stocks to historical levels, so that natural fertilization can take place again. Until then, however, he thinks fertilization can play a vital role in restoring watersheds to productivity.

“I equate each one of these to a pink salmon carcass,” said Mr. Ward, stooping to pluck a small brick of fertilizer from the streambed.

Upstream from the fish fence, Mr. Burroughs showed us a side channel he’d built, to tap into a natural flow of spring water. He filled it with fallen trees and root wads, creating a small swamp surrounded by forest. Coho fry could be seen flitting for cover, salamander eggs clung to underwater branches, and chironomids were hatching in the still water.

“This pond’s now been here four years - and it’s back to nature,” he said. “We don’t have to do anything now but let nature take its course.”

Farther up the river he showed us where huge trees had been wedged into the bank, creating pools. In the riffles he’d muscled boulders into mid-stream.

Behind each rock, steelhead smolts were holding.

While biologists were working in the stream itself, Bart Simmons, of Quillicum Forestry Services Ltd., was restoring the riparian zone - basically re-designing a forest trashed by logging.

Mr. Simmons said that when a forest is thinned properly, trees can surge up to reach the size of old growth specimens in just 30 years.

Those big trees, he said, will lock in the banks, making them strong enough to withstand 100-year flood events.

"They're taking care of the short term stuff," he said. "We're into the long term. Our work really starts to pay off down the line as the forest regenerates."

Mr. Simmons said the riparian zone work has to be done in conjunction with the in-stream projects if a river is to be returned to full health.

Many of the methods used on the Keogh have been employed elsewhere. But by putting together “the total package,” scientists appear to have scored a long sought breakthrough.

Standing on a logging road bridge, looking down at a reconstructed section of the river, Mr. Ward couldn’t help but smile.

“Isn’t it beautiful,” he said.

“We know how to restore them now. The real question is this: Is society willing to take on this challenge?”

It cost about $1 million to rebuild the Keogh and turn it into a productive system again. Mr. Ward would like to tackle 10 more salmon streams in B.C. using the same methods.

A proposal will go to government later this year.