A mystery has appeared in Oak Bay’s Bowker Creek, and Gerald Harris – a director with the Friends of Bowker Creek Society – is working with other volunteers to get to the bottom of it.
The strange happenings involve two adult female coho salmon that have appeared in the creek, which has not seen spawning salmon in years.
That’s good news for Bowker Creek, but the mystery is: why coho salmon?
Four years ago, in 2020, chum salmon eggs were brought in from the Goldstream Hatchery and placed in an egg incubation box in the creek. Those eggs turned into fry and eventually swam out into the ocean to live their best life.
This year is the end of those chum salmon’s lifecycle, and the Friends of Bowker Creek Society was hoping to see the fish return to the creek to spawn.
So far, there have been no chum, just …