Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Squamish's salmon run is underway (VIDEO)

A local conservationist captured remarkable footage of chum salmon spawning
Screen Shot 2020-11-15 at 4.12.14 PM
Chum salmon spawning near Squamish. Screenshot / YouTube: Chum Salmon Spawn!

Fisheries and Oceans Canada's (DFO) Tenderfoot Creek Hatchery in B.C.'s Paradise Valley is a busy place to be these days. 

Bob Turner, a conservationist and retired geological scientist, has been following the chum salmon run that's currently underway on the south coast.

He stopped by Tenderfoot Hatchery, just north of Squamish last week, Nov. 5, and managed to catch a truly remarkable moment on film: a female chum salmon releasing her eggs and males fertilizing them at very close range. 

"I was using a small underwater camera on a long pole that I quietly advanced to the edge of a chum salmon nest," Turner explained in an email. "The waters in the spawning channel are remarkably clear because they are spring (groundwater) fed." 

Check out his footage below.