Dear Sir:
My family and I have lived at Lakelse Lake now since 1981 and we’ve enjoyed our time here and this is where I plan to retire. But I’m concerned with the kind of activity that can go on that affects the spawning beds for salmon.
I’ve noticed over the years people putting material into salmon-spawning streams and sometimes altering their course.
Years ago my kids and I used to watch the salmon spawn and that’s something which is pretty rare.
We live near Crystal Creek, one of those streams where coho spawn. There used to be between 30 to 40 coho spawn in this creek every year but this year there were none that we could find.
I also noticed, being a lakefront owner, when I would go swimming, there were very few fry nibbling on me when I would stand still.
My wife and I have let the reeds grow in front of our place so that the fry, frogs, birds and bees have a natural place to live. But there are now very few fry.
Fisheries told me that it was, and I do know, a very poor return on fish stocks all over. But my point is that you should not jeopardize the return if you have very few offspring to start with.
Just recently a sign was put up asking people to protect the fish habitat and I couldn’t agree more.
But I would also like to see more enforcement on the part of Fisheries and other officials to protect and encourage habitat. That’s not too much to ask for considering that we live in such a wonderful place.
Brian Parent,
Lakelse Lake, B.C.