64 replies to this topic

[Victoria Watcher]

Ten years into a 100-year restoration plan, the narrative of Greater Victoria’s Bowker Creek is changing stream.

The creek is being viewed again as a resource for native plants, diverse wildlife and local residents.

“Despite having covered it up, urbanized it with all the hard surfaces in the watershed, it’s still here,” said Soren Henrich, director of the Friends of Bowker Creek Society. “Instead of just a ditch to move stormwater or carry away pollution out into the ocean, we’re looking at it as an environmental asset.”

 

https://www.vicnews....t-gets-a-boost/

[Victoria Watcher]

isn’t this essentially like GMO? introducing a species to a creek they have never past inhabited?

And what is the goal of a total of 60 salmon? Me and my friends landed over 70 last week on our fishing trip. Ate them up.




Bruce said 30,000 eggs is the minimum amount required to ensure the project’s success and should guarantee about 40 to 60 adult salmon.

“Even if we only get 10, we’re happy,” he said. “If we get 20, we’re laughing. If we get 40, we’re high-fiving.”

Trapping may be done downstream afterwards to ensure surviving salmon migrate out, Bruce added. While the exact spawning site remains undisclosed, he did confirm the project is happening within the District of Oak Bay around lower Bowker Creek.


https://www.vicnews....ak-bay-section/

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 02 August 2021 - 02:09 PM.

[Tom Braybrook]

isn’t this essentially like GMO? introducing a species to a creek they have never past inhabited?

And what is the goal of a total of 60 salmon? Me and my friends landed over 70 last week on our fishing trip. Ate them up.




Bruce said 30,000 eggs is the minimum amount required to ensure the project’s success and should guarantee about 40 to 60 adult salmon.

“Even if we only get 10, we’re happy,” he said. “If we get 20, we’re laughing. If we get 40, we’re high-fiving.”

Trapping may be done downstream afterwards to ensure surviving salmon migrate out, Bruce added. While the exact spawning site remains undisclosed, he did confirm the project is happening within the District of Oak Bay around lower Bowker Creek.


https://www.vicnews....ak-bay-section/

not so much GMO which entails gene splicing of one species into another - but more like the introduction of zebra mussels or gypsy moth, or the dandelion for that matter. 

 

all species introduced into an non-native environment

[todd]

isn’t this essentially like GMO? introducing a species to a creek they have never past inhabited?

And what is the goal of a total of 60 salmon? Me and my friends landed over 70 last week on our fishing trip. Ate them up.

I keep three minnows the person at PetSmart asked me if I was using them as feeder fish


I was under the impression the creek did have fish at one point?

Edited by todd, 02 August 2021 - 05:18 PM.

[Victoria Watcher]

After more than a century, a hope that salmon will return to Bowker Creek

https://www.timescol...reek-1.24350937



I don’t think most salmon live that long. even if they do the old ones have probably forgotten how to find the creek.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 14 August 2021 - 08:54 AM.

[Mike K.]

Might they have already had a spawning program in the creek?

[todd]

I think it’s pretty cool. But the raccoons and rats are going to love it even more if it’s successful.

[Victoria Watcher]

The District of Oak Bay is asking the public to avoid part of the Oak Bay Recreation Centre parking lot after a section of bank along Bowker Creek collapsed.

 

Cones and barriers were set up around a metres-long chunk of collapsed creekside on Thursday. The blocked-off section is on the eastern side of the recreation centre’s upper parking lot.

 

 

 

https://www.vicnews....reation-centre/

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 25 March 2022 - 03:52 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

This is nailbiting. Can’t wait for the Hollywood movie!



Staff in Oak Bay are looking to reinforce a section of Bowker’s bank after it slid into the creek Thursday.

Banks of the waterway are six to eight feet high, built up years ago to create the adjacent parking lot at Oak Bay Recreation Centre. Along the section, streaming water has been eroding that bank for years, explained Steve Rennick, manager of engineering.

https://www.vicnews....ker-creek-bank/

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 25 March 2022 - 03:04 PM.

[todd]

Based on a true story

[Redd42]

The things that make Oak Bay residents clutch their pearls. The amount of concern for that creek (ditch really) is astounding. Most of it flows through an underground drainage pipe. 

 

And to think folks protested a new hospice building over that creek, which at that point is just a ditch that flows through the middle of an open field.

[Victoria Watcher]

I agree. They should either make it a ditch again or go whole hog and make it an attraction. With bumper boats, water skiing and jet ski rentals.

And swimming competitions. Install a dam at the outlet to increase the water level a bit. For underwater hockey games.

Commuter ferry from Willows to University Heights.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 26 March 2022 - 11:14 AM.

[Nparker]

At the very least Oak Bay could have giant tea cup races on the creek during the weekend of the Tea Party.

[Victoria Watcher]

Redirect that Oak Bay runoff during rainstorms down it and you could have white water (mixed with brown water) rafting.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 26 March 2022 - 11:17 AM.

[todd]

At the very least Oak Bay could have giant tea cup races on the creek during the weekend of the Tea Party.

They do a rubber duck race I think annually


https://www.oakbayne...e-bowker-creek/

Edited by todd, 26 March 2022 - 11:29 AM.

[todd]

And to think folks protested a new hospice building over that creek, which at that point is just a ditch that flows through the middle of an open field.

With a bit of sloping and gardening should be able to turn it into a zen atmosphere with the trickle of water. Like they did by the new Oak Bay High or go with the 1970s part a little further down.



https://www.oakbay.c...subject_tid=All

Edited by todd, 26 March 2022 - 04:23 PM.

[Victoria Watcher]

The Bowker Creek egg hatch went off without a hitch and nearly bang on time, predicted by the primary waterway watcher.

In mid-March, Val Aloian, tasked with checking the water temperature and levels every day, predicted the nearly 30,000 chum eggs nestled into a rock bed would emerge about April 1. When she went down for her daily check-in, the Oak Bay woman was the one to notice the small fry swimming about on March 30.

“They were hanging out close to the incubation box, under cover of woody debris at the edge of the deep pool,” the Friends of Bowker Creek reported on social media.

https://www.vicnews....ming-in-bowker/

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 06 April 2022 - 11:11 AM.

[Nparker]

Nothing quite like a hitch-free hatch.

[Victoria Watcher]

Tiny trees dot small hills with a waterway marked in blue making its way across the tabletop 3D model of the Bowker Creek watershed.

A tiny drop of soy sauce represents a leaking oil tank, a sprinkle of dry drink crystals acts as fertilizer. A squirt of water from a spray bottle imitates rain, creating little rivulets of colour, and they all stream down the model together to a bucket under the table.

The physical representation of human impact on the landscape stuck with Oak Bay High student Olivia Friesen from the first time she saw it more than three years ago in Grade 9.

https://www.vicnews....dents-to-share/




Never in the history of a storm water street runoff has a gutter attracted so much attention.

Is someone fertilizing their crops on the banks of the mighty Bowker? Must be David Black, he owns the only Oak Bay farm.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 21 May 2022 - 03:33 PM.

[Redd42]

The ditch runs through the middle of the Bowker Creek Community Garden, which is just west of Beach Dr.