Juvenile salmon & small streams

The Great Bear Rainforest is home to over 2,500 salmon runs from more than 5,000 spawning populations.  Many of these rivers are still intact, offering a unique opportunity to study the linkages between salmon and the larger food web.

However, salmon in this region are faced with increasing threats, many of which have depressed and extirpated salmon populations throughout the Pacific Northwest. Some of our previous work to understand ecology, status of, and threats to coastal salmon populations is linked below.

Ghost Runs: The status and management of coastal salmon streams

Raincoast has ongoing assessments on the status of BC streams. In 2008, we published Ghost Runs  discussing the status of salmon on BC’s central and north coast. Our findings showed that salmon runs have repeatedly failed to meet their escapement targets as set by Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

Small Stream Surveys

Raincoast has engaged in Small Stream Surveys to document salmon presence in uncatalogued small streams and then expand this to other areas of the central and north coasts of BC.

Chum & Coho Stream Ecology

In partnership with Simon Fraser University, Raincoast examined connections between coho fry and the eggs and carcasses of spawning chum salmon in coastal streams.  This was the focus of the Chum & Coho Stream Ecology Project.

Juvenile Salmon Ecology

In partnership with Simon Fraser University and the University of Victoria, Raincoast examined whether salmon farms situated along the migration routes of juvenile salmon are disrupting survival of sockeye, chum and pink salmon. This was the focus of our Juvenile Salmon Ecology Project.

You can help

Raincoast’s in-house scientists, collaborating graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and professors make us unique among conservation groups. We work with First Nations, academic institutions, government, and other NGOs to build support and inform decisions that protect aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, and the wildlife that depend on them. We conduct ethically applied, process-oriented, and hypothesis-driven research that has immediate and relevant utility for conservation deliberations and the collective body of scientific knowledge.

We investigate to understand coastal species and processes. We inform by bringing science to decision-makers and communities. We inspire action to protect wildlife and wildlife habitats.