PARTICIPATE

Dogs 4 Salmon

EMAIL PRINT

Turn Your Dogwalks Into Salmon-Friendly Occasions

There are few things as joyful as walking your canine companion in a beautiful environment, whether it be a grassy field or along the banks of a stream or river. Unfortunately, all the fun your dog may be having chasing a stick near or on a riverbank may be deadly for salmon. Adult salmon can be disturbed from spawning, and/or the eggs they deposit in the gravel can be torn up and washed away. The threat is most severe when water levels are low, making escape harder for the salmon.

But there’s good news! Your dog can actually act on behalf of salmon, with your help. When you walk your dog alongside a stream or river, you can be the eyes and ears for the salmon.

Look out for:

• Cement trucks, carpet cleaners, or dry cleaners dumping any suspicious waste
• Any water colour or smell that doesn’t seem normal or healthy
• Anyone harming salmon, whether through poaching or using unauthorized stream flow diversions
• Anyone or any activity that is causing destruction to the riparian zone where you and your dog are walking

And help your dog be good to salmon:

• Clean up after them in riparian areas
• Keep them from chasing birds and wildlife including salmon
• Learn which areas to avoid walking your dog based on the presence of salmon spawning, hatching, or being too young to avoid danger

The Maple Creek Streamkeepers’ Dogs 4 Salmon Community Program

The tips above come straight from a community streamkeeper program already happenning. It’s Dogs 4 Salmon, headed up by Diane Ramage. So far, it’s limited to the Maple Creek area. Salmon-sensitive dogs in this program get:

• Bandanas that their owners paint with the DFO Observe, Record, and Report (ORR) hotline number
• Cookies
• And a cookie for their human companion!

Their owners learn about the seasonal use of the stream by fish and wildlife, and how there are eggs in the gravel during certain times of the year:

• Chum: September to May
• Coho: September to February
• Cutthroat and Steelhead: Right up to May

For more information about Dogs 4 Salmon, email .