August 16, 2021, by Alex McCarrel

It has been a wet windy week for the CHUM crew! With gusts up to 30 mph and over 5 inches of rain in a 48-hour period, crews quickly adapted to soggy salmon surveying. Eventually the weather won out and crews were able to enjoy the back-to-back rainstorms from the comfort of home. Mother nature has done some rearranging, with new log jams, eroded banks, and creek channels. Fish Creek took the brunt of the storm, being the main watershed for all north Douglas Island, rising over 3 feet in 12 hours. Take a look at the photo below, showing what Fish Creek looks like on a normal survey day compared to peak flow during the storms. What a difference!

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Next week is looking to be somewhat drier, so surveying is back on the menu as the CHUM crew relearns their respective creeks. Finding chum carcasses will have a challenging component moving forward, as high water levels have pushed carcasses well beyond normal creeks boundaries, pushing well into established trails and riparian forests. Looks like terrestrial carcasses surveying will be in their future!