Cobourg Creek vital to bringing back salmon

[Spiel]

Cobourg Creek vital to bringing back salmon

 

 

October 7th, 2009

Cecilia Nasmith / Northumberland Today

 

 

Cobourg council learned this week that Cobourg Creek is vital in the campaign to restore Atlantic salmon to Lake Ontario.

 

Visiting as what he called “a one-person good-will tour on behalf of the steering committee for the Lake Ontario salmon-restoration program,” Terry Quinney described the success of the first four years of the five-year Bring Back The Salmon Lake Ontario program.

 

In Cobourg Creek, just one of their project locations, 28 restocking projects were undertaken, during which time Bring Back The Salmon invested $40,000 in such things as tree plantings along the bank and stream clean-up.

 

Local volunteer involvement includes classroom-hatchery projects at both Cobourg District Collegiate Institutes East and West, where students receive fertilized eggs from brood stations that they grow to various life stages before being released.

 

The program includes three full-time biologists who monitor the salmon eight months of the year. In Cobourg Creek, they are seeing four-year-old fish released at the beginning of the project, which is a sign of success.

 

“This is not just a species-restoration program, as iconic as Atlantic salmon are to this community. We are trying hard to improve even further the quality of water and habitat associated with Cobourg Creek,” Quinney added.

 

“These creatures demand an excellent water quality and habitat conditions, and that’s a tribute to our community that you have rebuilt the environmental quality of Cobourg Creek over a long period of time.”