Picture
 Year Round Activities:
  • Ongoing Water Quality Monitoring
  • Rotary Screw Trap (Out-migration Monitoring)
  • Watershed Model Touring and Tsolum Field Trips for elementary schools
  • Spawning salmon enumeration every fall
  • Outreach/Display Season; we regularly attend Vancouver Island Musicfest, CV Exhibition, CV Farmer's market, Black Creek Fall Fair, Family Watershed Day, A River Never Sleeps Festival. 
  Current Projects:
  • ​We are implementing Tsolum River Recovery Plan (TRRP) and have focused on bedload stabilization projects from 2018-2026.   See our Recovery Plan  for more information.
  •  Since 2017, we have visited elementary schools with our 3D watershed model, teaching kids about their local watershed, land uses, the water cycle, and point sources of pollution/flood protection.  Over 4,000 kids in SD71 have enjoyed our interactive presentation.  
  • We offer trees and planting expertise to landowners along rivers and creeks in the Tsolum Watershed. Contact [email protected] if you live near the river and are interested in riparian restoration.

Out-Migration using Rotary Screw Trap and Fish Fences

Picture

RST Results 2025

The Tsolum River out-migration of fish is monitored annually to help us to monitor health of populations.  Traps are counted daily between March and end of May.  Volunteers are needed to help with this annual monitoring work.   If you want to be participate in hands on fish biology from April through May, send us a note on our Contacts page. ​  We will provide fish identification and fish handling training.  

Fall Salmon Counting

Picture

The Pink salmon have large runs every other year in the Tsolum. Teams conduct spawning salmon counts every fall (usually late September or early October).  In 2021,  over 155,000 pinks counted!  Fall 2023 saw that number increase to over 300,000!!. Fall 2025 is proving to be be a difficult year - there are lots of fish, but very little water (as of end of September). Stay tuned!
​ If you want to be part of this annual volunteer work, send us a note on our Contacts page. ​​

Fry Salvaging

​
Staff and many volunteers from both the general membership and Eyes on the River citizen science group conduct fry rescues and salvages, starting in the early spring and extending into the mid summer. Species such as coho and chinook salmon fry and smolts are moved from isolated ponds and side channels into safer locations such as the Tsolum mainstem. If you see stranded fish within the Tsolum watershed, please report your findings to [email protected] and include the location(s), number of isolated fish and any relevant notes on water quality and fish health.  
Check out images of some of our activities and projects below!