Male pink salmon heading up Morrison Creek. Photo by K Clouston
Wendy, one of our volunteers, and her assistant have started to walk the creek to determine how many spawning salmon are using it. They walked lower Morrison Creek on Sept 23/10. On that streamwalk they found the following numbers of pink salmon:
Puntledge Park to First Street culvert;
150 live, 55 dead
First Street culvert to Puntledge School footbridge;
240 live (includes 100 using the side channel), 7 dead
Puntledge School footbridge to Morrison Park footbridge ;
199 live, 19 dead
We walked Morrison again last Thursday, Sept 30/10, starting with the section above where we stopped last week, as well as some on the areas around Lake Trail Road. Here is what we did and observed:
Morrison Park footbridge to Powerhouse Road:
102 alive and 61 dead; this reach has a lot of bedrock, steeper sections, and large cobble and boulders.
Nellie Creek (first creek above the gate):
1 dead pink above the road and 1 redd (beaver dam is about 5 feet high); 3 dead pink below the road and 2 redds
Creek above Nellie (not sure what its called):
0 pink above and below road
Old Logging Road Bridge:
no pinks below the bridge for approximately 150m
First Supply Creek @ staff gauge:
above LT Road 0 pinks;
below LT road 5 pink immediately below not able to get up the culvert; 2 pink below road to Morrison mainstem
Morrison mainstem at LK Road:
0 pink below road; 3 cutthroat above road
Thanks for the report Wendy! These counts indicate that there were probably around 1500 pinks that spawned in Morrison Creek this year.
