While parties rage around the province tonight, one group is working hard to bring back herring to False Creek.
They are known as the Squamish Streamkeepers and were successful in 2006 in increasing the population of herring in Squamish Harbour.
They saw that the eggs that spawned on creosote pilings in the harbour were dying, so they began wrapping them with protective materials. The eggs survived by the hundreds of millions and by 2010 the large increase in herring attracted the first dolphins and whales seen in Howe Sound in 50 years.
They are hoping to have similar success in False Creek.
There was a stock of herring that once lived only off the mouth of the Fraser River and spawned in U.S. waters near Cherry Point, from Birch Bay south to Bellingham Bay. In the 1970’s the BP oil company built a refinery at Cherry Point to process Alaskan oil. The herring stocks plummeted from 15,000 tons to 2,000 tons with little likelihood of an increase in the foreseeable future.
In False Creek, land was taken from the Squamish people in 1913 and converted into wharfs, destroying the native vegetation that the herring once spawned on.
The Squamish Streamkeepers have tested materials at the False Creek Fisherman’s Wharf and found one that appears to be protective to herring eggs. They have been given permission by the Board of directors of the Fisherman’s Wharf to wrap 20 creosote pilings at A Float to see how effective they are.
The wrapping will take place tonight because there is a 0 foot tide at 10:44 p.m., which will allow the Streamkeeper crew to nail the materials to the pilings at a good depth.
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