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Category: Marine Biology

Nature Vancouver Trip to Adams River

Nature Vancouver Trip to Adams River

Trip Report by Cynthia Crampton From October 11th to 13th, 2022, thirty-two members of Nature Vancouver participated in this trip to witness the dominant year migration of the sockeye salmon. Twenty members traveled by Enjoy the Journey chartered bus, and twelve by private vehicles. We all stayed at the Sorrento Conference Centre, on the Shuswap Lake. After reaching the Centre, some of them settled in but most of them went down to visit Shuswap Lake, on the property.   Next day –…

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Intertidal Exploration at Centennial Beach

Intertidal Exploration at Centennial Beach

Report by Cathy Walker On July 2, 2022, I participated in the Marine Biology field trip, led by Sheila Byers, to the intertidal zone at Centennial Beach in Delta.  Sheila focused primarily on eelgrass, lugworms and bivalves. I learned a lot. The native eelgrass, Zostera marina, has the wider, longer leaves while the introduced species, Zostera japonica, has the narrower, shorter leaves. There is a lot of Z. japonica on the sandy mudflats of Centennial Beach. The native eelgrass prefers to be immersed in…

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Western Painted Turtles – Nesting Sites

Western Painted Turtles – Nesting Sites

Submitted by Caroline Penn  An early morning drop off at the Fulford ferry and return trip past Stowel Lake with the sun breaking through a cover of mist caused me to stop and explore the lakeshore, hoping for a few shots of the lake.  This little corner of the lake draws many swimmers on hot summer days but today with spring temperatures still cool enough for a morning frost I found a different attraction. On the short path to the lake…

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Health of Fraser River Sockeye

Health of Fraser River Sockeye

Research Paper by Otto Langer Nature Vancouver members will be interested to read this research paper by renowned fisheries biologist and Nature Vancouver member, Otto Langer: Why Alaska’s Bristol Bay Rivers Produce More Sockeye Salmon that the Fraser River. The subtitle of Langer’s 15-page research paper is: An inconvenient truth – human activity and climate change has much to do with the demise of sockeye in the Fraser River. Note that his paper was written March 2021, so before the summer Heat Dome and…

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Stoney Creek Salmon Tour

Stoney Creek Salmon Tour

Trip Leaders Deborah Simpson and Joan Lopez  Report by Deborah Simpson, Joan Lopez, and Sheila Byers On 26 November, 2021, a rare sunny morning, our group of 10 met up for a walk along the upper reaches of Stoney Creek in Burnaby with the hope of seeing some spawning salmon. Stoney Creek is one of the few places in an urban environment where you can see salmon spawning up close. It is home to coho (Oncorhynchus kisutch) and chum (Oncorhynchus keta) salmon,…

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Humpback Whales in the Salish Sea

Humpback Whales in the Salish Sea

By Bill Merilees                               “Whales are disporting themselves in Saanich Inlet. Mr. Warren is preparing whale boats and apparatus for waging war on the monsters of the deep”, so read the British Colonist Newspaper in Victoria, September 10th, 1866.  This was the beginning of whaling in British Columbia. A century later (1967), the whale stocks were so diminished that the last provincial shore based commercial whaling station, at Quatsino Sound, on northwest coast of Vancouver Island, shut down for good. The Humpback…

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Indian Arm Boat Tour

Indian Arm Boat Tour

Trip organized by Bengül Kurtar Trip report by Deborah Simpson and Angela Bond On July 6, our group of 40 nature lovers boarded the Ocean Watch II for a tour of Indian Arm, a glacial fjord that extends 20 km north of Burrard Inlet. We set off just past high tide in calm waters; the cloudy and misty weather was positively framed by Captain Mitch as an “authentic west coast experience”. Mitch explained that Indian Arm is the traditional territory…

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Stanley Park Intertidal Exploration

Stanley Park Intertidal Exploration

Photos and trip report by Sheila Byers Ecosystems change with time whether it be seasonally or over a period of years. A visit to the rocky intertidal zone off Figurehead Point in Stanley Park on Sunday, June 16, 2019 is a good example of changes to inhabitants within this community and this is my perspective on what’s happening. It was Father’s Day and a Dad and his daughter joined us on our beach exploration on the sandy and rocky intertidal…

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Centennial Beach Intertidal Exploration – Boundary Bay Regional Park

Centennial Beach Intertidal Exploration – Boundary Bay Regional Park

Photos and Trip Report by Sheila Byers A small but keen group of explorers joined me on Thursday, June 6, 2019 to walk the two kilometre distance to the subtidal eelgrass meadows at Centennial Beach. Round trip for the exploration was close to 5 km; an indication of the very low Spring tide at 0.5 m elevation. It was a cool, breezy day but luckily no rain.  We found most of the “usual suspects” that inhabit the sandy mudflats, including…

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Streamkeepers Walk at Lynn Creek

Streamkeepers Walk at Lynn Creek

Trip report by Anne Leathem If we were salmon returning to Lynn Creek to spawn … what would we hope for? Wouldn’t it be nice to have sheltered pools behind large stumps and trees where we can rest as we fight our way against the current, and some climbable ladders to get around new obstacles up stream to our own spawning areas, some gravel beds in quiet water where we can clear a redd in which to lay our eggs,…

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