Submitted
The Pacific Salmon Foundation announced that the Oyster River Enhancement Society is the recipient of Community Salmon Program grants totalling almost $27,000.
The announcement was made at Black Creek, part of Bear Creek Nature Park in the Comox Valley, with Minister John Duncan (MP-Vancouver Island North) and visiting Manitoba MP Bob Sopuck, who is a member of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and chair of the Conservative Hunting and Angling Caucus. The grants are two of 18 distributed by the foundation in Vancouver Island North that total more than $165,000 this year.
The first project involves construction of an aluminum “salmon box” to hold adult chinook, coho, pink and chum salmon until they are ready to spawn. The second will go towards creating a pool that will provide improved habitat for adult and juvenile salmonids.
“The grants from the Pacific Salmon Foundation will directly support our hatchery, which now has the capacity to support over 2.5 million coho, pink, chinook and chum salmon eggs,” said Bernard Lecerf, president of the Oyster River Enhancement Society. “The holding and habitat improvements we will implement as a result of this funding will mean even more salmon in our river.”