Kokanee salmon spawning enters waning days

• Last weeks to see kokanee salmon spawning in area streams
• Healthy number of salmon spotted this season

For weeks, kokanee salmon have spent their days swimming upstream, laying eggs, and defending those eggs from passing predators.

It’s an annual journey for many of the salmon that call Okanagan Lake home.

Around Kelowna, spawning season begins in early-August at Hardy Falls in Peachland and a few weeks later at Mission Creek Regional Park in Kelowna, running until mid-October.

The spawning channel at Mission Creek was built in the 1980s to improve the salmon’s habitat.

Kokanee salmon are an indicator species, meaning if the salmon are healthy, so too is the environment around them. In this case, that is Okanagan Lake.

“We like to drink clean water. If there is enough clean water for the fish, we are in a good situation as well,” Park Interpreter Alison Campbell Urness told Kelowna 10. “The ecosystem is intricate and intertwined.”

Visitors to either spawning ground will notice the fish moving up stream, preparing the gravel along the riverbed, laying eggs, and defending those eggs from predators until they run out of energy and die.

Plump mallards are common along the spawning channels, too. The ducks paddle along the water, churn up the eggs and gobble them down.

They also peck at the dead fish, which helps break up the dead salmon and reintroduce the nutrients into the ecosystem.

The eggs develop over the winter, protected from the elements under the gravel. In December, they reach a stage known as eyed eggs. They develop into alevin in January and February, growing a yolk sack that sustains them as they wiggle around under the gravel.

Once that energy is used up in March and April, they emerge as fry, swim to the surface, take a breath, fill their air bladder, and make their way down to the lake. The salmon call it home for three to six years.

Spawning season remains strong at Hardy Falls but is in the waning days at Mission Creek.

This weekend will be the final opportunity for on-site public interpreters at both locations from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

Visitors are asked to be vigilant as bears do remain active in the area and occasionally wander down to the creeks for a snack.