The Mossom Creek Hatchery is a modern facility that includes an incubation room with five stacks of heath trays for eggs and alevins and a main room with four Capilano troughs to rear fry and two large rearing tubs for juvenile fish. The hatchery is equipped with a high-tech monitoring system that continually reports temperature, dissolved oxygen and water level.

DFO's Salmonid Enhancement Program (SEP) works with Mossom Creek Hatchery volunteers through a public involvement program (PIP) created to enable stewardship groups and volunteers with an opportunity to undertake small, community-based projects that restore critical salmon habitat, enhance salmon to support local fisheries, promote volunteerism, educate the public on the importance of salmon conservation and promote a culture of salmon stewardship. Our daily and seasonal activities support these efforts. 

• Fall Activities include maintenance and preparation for the fall egg-take.
• Winter activities are focused on caring for incubated eggs and alevin as they hatch and mature.
• Spring is when we release fry ready to head out to the estuary and inlet.

Year-round activities include feeding, cleaning and general care of hatchery fish, as well as maintenance of the hatchery facility under the guidance of a DFO community advisor and volunteer hatchery manager.

On average over the past decade, the hatchery annually releases approximately 100,000 chum fry into the Port Moody area and approximately 4,000 coho smolts each year directly into Burrard Inlet. We also raise 50,000 to 90,000 pink salmon from eyed eggs in odd numbered years when broodstock is available.

Summer droughts and severe winter floods have recently impacted many BC river systems and the salmon in them. Fortunately, Mossom, with its ground water feed and intact riparian area, has fared better than most. Nonetheless, in recent years many eggs laid naturally in the creek have been lost to abnormally heavy winter flows. We are now on course to raise more coho in the protected environment of the hatchery in order to compensate for this.

We are currently planning further changes to our production rates and methods to improve our efforts to replenish the salmon stocks in the environment.

More updates to come.

Mossom Creek Hatchery 5-Year Release Summary (pdf, click to download)

2023 Release Summary