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Sooke Salmon Enhancement Society in search of female salmon

Group will take another crack at seining the Sooke River on Saturday
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The Sooke Salmon Enhancement Society is looking for volunteers to assist with seining chinook on Saturday (Oct. 15). (Contributed – SSES)

Too many males and not enough females set the stage for a second kick at netting some mates with some success..

The Sooke Salmon Enhancement Society took another crack at seining the Sooke River on Saturday (Oct. 15) following less than ideal results last weekend.

Although volunteers were able to net about 90 Chinook on Oct. 8, there were proportionately more males than females.

“We were hoping to get a lot more females,” said Sally Manning, director at large for the Sooke Salmon Enhancement Society regarding the previous effort. “We have enough males already to fertilize the females we have. We typically wait for rain before we do any seining, but we haven’t had a lot of rain.”

The seining on Oct. 5 netted better results, with just under 20 females taken.

Too much rain can be detrimental to volunteer efforts, Manning said in a previous interview.

“We had huge rainfalls in 2020 and 2021, but we didn’t get the number of fish we would normally because they went over the fences, there was too much water for us to get into the river for any seining, and the current was so strong it made it too dangerous.”

Manning has seen the number of fish in the Sooke River in decline for some time during her 10 to 12 years with the SSES.

“If it wasn’t for the work volunteers do harvesting, there wouldn’t be any chinook in the river,” she said.

She cited the dedication of volunteers like Bill Pedneault and others for their efforts in preserving the salmon stock.

“Bill’s been here since the society’s inception in 1981,” she noted. “He has a wealth of knowledge.”



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