Monday August 15, 2022
North Shore News —
Thousands of migrating sockeye and chinook salmon are making their way over a massive rock slide on British Columbia’s Fraser River this summer where barely 100 fish were counted for the entire season three years ago, Fisheries and Oceans officials said Friday.
The most recent salmon numbers from Aug. 9 pegged 280,000 chinook and sockeye at an area located about 40 kilometres past the slide site.
“What we’re seeing is pretty good passage results right now at the slide site, upwards of 39,000 salmon are passing through the Big Bar area on a daily basis,” said Gwil Roberts, a Fisheries and Oceans slide response official.
“We are seeing (river) flows that are advantageous to chinook and sockeye passage,” he said.
The Big Bar area of the river is a remote site north of Lillooet. The slide was first reported in June 2019.