FAQ

What is the Seymour Salmonid Society?
We are a not-for-profit organization that seeks to enhance Seymour River salmon and educate the public about the importance of the river as a resource for drinking water, wildlife, and the forest.
Our operational budget is funded by Metro Vancouver (GVWD), Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), along with other Government and Non-Government (NGO’s) funding bodies.  Our funds are used to employ three full-time staff and one seasonal staff, which enables us to deliver our education program, undertake salmonid enhancement and habitat restoration activities, along with the physical maintenance of our hatchery and learning centre buildings and equipment.

We send out emails to our volunteers in advance of activities we require support with. Join us? 

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  1. Towards our Gently Down the Seymour (GDS) Education program
  2. Towards our hatchery broodstock program, including fish food
  3. Towards our ongoing conservation and habitat restoration works within the watershed
The hatchery is open 7 days per week from 9:00am until 3:00pm.  Access is achieved via hiking or cycling the LSCR trails.
Easily accessible areas in the Seymour watershed include the Maplewood Farm and Heritage Park area of the lower river, where you can view pink salmon spawning between August and October, along with chum salmon between October and November.

The river has been closed for all fishing since 2015 because of the Seymour Rockslide, which blocked passage of salmonids to the spawning and rearing habitat in the middle and upper river.  The river remains closed for all fishing as we attempt to re-open the rockslide during all flow conditions to the returning salmonids, so it is unknown when it will re-open for fishing at this stage.

Primarily the people fishing the river are permitted broodstockers for the Seymour Hatchery.  These individuals will be wearing yellow hi-vis vests to designate them as permitted broodstockers.  If you see individuals fishing without hi-vis vests, please call the Conservation Officers hotline (1-800-465-4336).

What species of salmonids inhabit the Seymour River

Early and late run coho salmon, pink, chum, and chinook salmon, along with summer and winter run steelhead.

We spawn and rear coho, pink and chum salmon, along with summer and winter run steelhead.

You can make a donation to the Seymour Salmonid Society HERE! 

Thank you!

To mitigate for the loss of spawning and rearing habitat from the Seymour Falls water supply dam.  To offset the loss of spawning habitat from urbanisation, channel straightening and industrial activities in the lower river.  To mitigate for the effects of low ocean survival by all salmonids (i.e., predation, climate change, human induced impacts from fishing and habitat modification).

Annually we release up to one million of fry and smolts for all species combined.

During August and September each year we remove the adipose fin from our coho salmon and steelhead fry that we are rearing at the hatchery.  The clipped fry and then transferred to our outdoor rearing ponds until the following spring before being released.  A fish without an adipose fin is a hatchery fish, while those that retain their adipose fins are wild fish.

We primarily capture the returning adult salmonids via in-river seine netting events, or via broodstock fishing.  On occasion we may also visit other rivers to collect eggs and sperm to support the rebuilding of salmonid populations on the Seymour (i.e., chum salmon from the Alouette River).