Hatchery

List of 3 news stories.

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  Lake Omar Remediation Project

  9/6/2024
  A major project got underway in August to begin the remediation of Lake Omar, the natural centrepiece of the Shawnigan campus.

   

  Located in the heart of the school grounds, Lake Omar – one of two catchment ponds on campus – overflows into Hartl Creek, which then flows into Shawnigan Creek and eventually the Pacific Ocean. Lake Omar is the heart of a thriving ecosystem with a plethora of water and riparian plants, invertebrates, insects, birds and mammals. It supplies water to the Mark Hobson Hatchery on a seasonal basis, and in past years, it has also been stocked with trout and has been a favourite spot for students to flyfish. Unfortunately, Lake Omar is only a shallow pond and thus cannot sustain the life of fish year around as during the summer months the water becomes too hot to sustain fish life.

   

  In 2013-14, a group of like-minded people with backgrounds in biology, fisheries, and water quality got together with some Shawnigan science teachers to discuss how to improve the year-round health of this water body and how to ensure it could sustain the year-round life of fish. On Founder’s Day 2023, Kevin Tutty ’14 (Lake’s) and his father Brian, a retired fisheries and oceans biologist, brought up those discussions from a decade earlier with Head of School Mr. Larry Lamont, who put a plan in motion.

   
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  Annual Coho Release

  6/14/2024
  Nearly 10,000 salmon fry were released into the wild this month by students who raised them in the Mark Hobson Hatchery – a facility unique to Shawnigan among schools in British Columbia.

   

  The students in Science 9 and Environmental Science 11 and 12 have been nurturing the fish since November, when they caught fish in Shawnigan Creek to use as broodstock, then harvested eggs from the females and fertilized them with milt (semen) from the males. The eggs hatched into alevin – a phase where they are still carrying yolk – then grew into fry in March. Transferred into larger tanks at that point, they were fed and cared for over the following months until they were ready for release into Hartl and Shawnigan creeks.

   

  According to Hatchery Lead and Experiential Learning Instructor Mr. Louis Chancellor, the number of fish released this year was nearly double the amount released last year, thanks in part to some changes and improvements made to the system. He says it should be even better next year.

   
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  Hatchery Helps Make a Difference

  12/1/2023
  In addition to teaching students at Shawnigan about conservation, environmental stewardship, the salmon life cycle, and the importance of salmon to our part of the world, the School’s Mark Hobson Hatchery is contributing to the growth of the salmon run in Shawnigan Creek.

   

  This year marked the fourth year in a row that the Mill Bay and District Conservation Society has transported a record number of fish past the falls so they can spawn in the upper reaches of the creek. The society moved 985 coho salmon this year, surpassing expectations in a year when other streams on southern Vancouver Island saw low returns. Fish return to spawn every three years, so it is important to note that three years ago, 404 fish returned. Three years before that, the number was around 200, and three years before that, just five fish came back to spawn in Shawnigan Creek.

   

  Some of the fish that came back to spawn in Shawnigan Creek this year would have been released from the School’s hatchery three years ago.

   
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