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Photos Gallery
These pictures has been taken during the summer of 2001.
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Hatchery Rearing Pond
On left, coho over-wintering pond under predator net and outdoor classroom in background.
Note hand-built fish viewing
& feeding platform and guard rails. Over-wintering pond has about 23,000 coho salmon fry in it now.
Predator net tries to prevents
too many free meals for: Belted kingfishers; green-backed herons, great blue herons, Northwestern crows, various gulls species,
Hooded and Common mergansers, raccoons, river otters and coyotes, among other fish predators. Outdoor classroom is one of two
built in 1995 on the Noons Creek hatchery site. In the fall of 2001, roughly
1,374 elementary & middle school students in grades 1 to
7, from about 30 elementary & middle schools from Coquitlam School District # 43 participated in one of three PMES courses offered.
The fall 2001 PMES schools program also involved 49 teachers and about 274 parents and/or guardians (drivers).
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Below, concrete and wood weir. Part of series of weirs, overhangs, channels and pools in a complex of about 100
meters of new off-channel hand-built restored and enhanced fish habitat , constructed over the last five years on the Noons Creek
hatchery site by a highly focused 'crew' of volunteers at little or no cost.
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Wooden log weir and channel. Over-wintering pond outflow channel looking upstream toward overwintering
pond. Note density of healthy riparian vegetation, composed mostly of native plants. Ideal fish habitat.
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Hand-built concrete and wood weir. Part of newly created off-channel fish habitat on Noons Creek hatchery site.
Please note: Looking upstream on left hand side, hand-built overhang/bench with plant growth on top.
This was third section of hand-built off-channel fish habitat restored and enhanced by an extraordinary volunteer crew over the past five years.
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Below, a pool with some small root wads for woody debris.
Part of newly hand-built off-channel fish habitat on Noons Creek hatchery site.
Note wooden weir with circular opening at far end of pool, and fish friendly features, such as,
overhangs/benches on right hand side of pool (fish resting and hiding places) with plant growth on top.
Circular opening in weir is for a fish trap, installed in spring each year to enable daily trapping and counting of out-migrating fry and smolts from this new
off-channel habitat to determine usage and effectiveness of new habitat.
This was the first in the series of pools and weirs and channels built by-hand by a dedicated 'crew' of volunteers in 1996.
A excellent example of what can be done to restore and enhance off-channel fish habitat, now extremely rare in urban watersheds, by volunteers with little or no money.
Please note: in distant background, the railing for a fish viewing area, newly installed by the City of Port Moody.
This fish viewing area is on a new section of the Trans-Canada Trail looking towards the Noons Creek hatchery site and fish spawning in Noons Creek.
The Noons Creek
hatchery site is located in the City of Port Moody Shoreline Park, apparently visited by 750,000 people each year. |
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Weir - Part of Noons Creek Enhancement
On left, close-up of wooden log weir for previous photo.
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On right, Noons Creek after a healthy fall rainfall, looking downstream from over-wintering pond outflow channel
confluence. Usually on the left hand side at the bend is the preferred feeding location of a Great blue heron.
This is prime spawning habitat for both chum and coho salmon. Cutthroat trout are also ever-present here too.
Hand-built in-stream fish friendly features are below water. Additional weirs and specially selected spawning gravel will be added to compensate for lack of natural downstream
gravel recruitment and to improve spawning opportunities. |
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