A small group from Mossom went up to Squamish in September to assist in a Pink salmon egg take. Pink salmon spawn once every two years, and this is the year. Our portion of the eggs was determined to be 50,000 and these eggs remained in Squamish until they became eyed in December, at which time they were transferred to Mossom. When December came around we were pleasantly surprised to hear that our portion of Pink eggs was increased from 50,000 to 100,000.
Chum Egg Takes usually occur in the month of October in the Alouette River in Maple Ridge, but unfortunately Chum returns this year are historically low. Scheduled egg takes were cancelled due to a lack of returning salmon to Alouette, but we did manage to get 21,000 Chum eggs from the Alouette. Our volunteers were ecstatic to see several chum in Mossom Creek on the morning of Sunday October 27th. Our egg take team, led by Rufus Mclntyre and Jesse Kouwenhoven was able to collect 2195 eggs from one lovely female chum salmon for fertilization. So this year, instead of getting 100,000 Chum eggs, we got 100,00 Pink eggs and 23,000 Chum eggs.
We were also unable to harvest any Mossom Coho this year so we are relying on Noon’s Creek to supply us with about 4,000 eggs. We are expecting these in January (when they become eyed). At this point, we will have this year’s complete supply of eggs.
