Brian Banks, co-manager of the Nanaimo River Hatchery, has told Canada.com that more than 20,000 pink salmon are expected to return to the harbour and adjacent rivers by mid-September, the best numbers since the hatchery joined up with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the Nanaimo Fish and Game Protective Association and other organizations to begin a program to reintroduce the species to local waterways earlier this decade.
The partners have been hatching pink salmon eggs taken from Campbell River at the Nanaimo River Hatchery and transferring them to three holding pens in the harbour at the Newcastle Island ferry slip, Duke Point and the Pacific Biological Station in increasing numbers since the programme began in 2001.
The young salmon are held in the pens for about a month for imprinting until they are about one gramme in weight. Then they are released with the hope many will return to spawn in the area at the end of their two-year lifecycles.
Pink Salmon Making Major Comeback
BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA - After being rendered virtually extinct in the Nanaimo harbour since the 1950s, pink salmon are now returning to the area by the thousands.
