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The Toboggan Creek Hatchery
Wednesday, July 9th, 2008 by GetawayBC.com
Did you know that it only takes 12 female chinook to produce 37,000 eggs – enough to keep Toboggan Creek Hatchery’s stocks running high? Each year the hatchery breeds about 150,000 coho and chinook, with their gates open for all the public to come and see, free of charge.
Feed the swarming smolts. Stroll the nature trails that wind alongside the creek. Lay down a blanket and enjoy a picnic or toss a baseball on their lawns. There’s always something to see according to the hatchery staff, whether it’s beavers, otters, ducks or mink, in addition to the spawning steelhead and returning salmon in Toboggan Creek.
Hatchery staff incubate eggs from salmon returning to the creek via Glacier Gulch each year when the water begins to warm. The fish are raised for a year and a half at Toboggan Creek before they are released with coated wire tracking tags embedded in their snouts. A hundred and fifty thousand fry are currently inside the hatchery, waiting to be tagged this August and eventually released into the wild.
The adipose fins are removed from the tagged fish at an early stage as a means of identification. When the hatchery fish are caught, the lucky fishermen and women are asked to return the heads to the hatchery so that information the fish carry can be compiled and analysed by Fisheries and Oceans Canada. The information that this system supplies is so detailed that biologists are able to observe patterns amongst wild fish and set catch limits. As incentive to return the heads, each person who returns a head is offered a hat and is entered in a draw for a vacation.
The hatchery, (or Toboggan Creek Salmon and Steelhead Enhancement Society), is open to the public every day before 3 p.m.. There is no need to make tour reservations, unless you are planning to come in a large group, in which case a phone call in advance is preferred.;