Sponsoring a Salmon is back to help restore Kus-kus-sum

Click to view the Sponsor A Salmon Video

This fundraiser was launched in 2019 as part of our education and stewardship program with students from around the Comox Valley. Over 300 painted salmon, each one hand painted by a child or community member and sponsored for at least $25, currently adorn the fence due to this program. In addition, over 50 business salmon, which bear logos of their sponsors, have joined them to highlight the wide range of support we have received for this project from our community and beyond. Together the Sponsor A Salmon program has raised over $20,000 for the Kus-kus-sum project!

This year students from Arden, Valley View and Cumberland Schools have participated in the Students Keeping It Living program which includes an in-class estuary presentation, a field trip to learn about the estuary and Kus-kus-sum first-hand and an art and literature component. During the field trip students were involved in education and stewardship activities such as water quality monitoring, salmon games, nature walks, plant maintenance and garbage pick up. The field trips were lead by Project Watershed staff and volunteers.

Inspired by that learning, the students have created written pieces and painted wooden salmon. The salmon and some of the other written pieces are showcased on this page.

A salmon can be sponsored through a donation of $25 or more. Donors will receive a charitable tax receipt for the full amount of their donation. The name of the student who painted the salmon and the donor will go on the back of the salmon. The salmon will then be put up on the Kus-kus-sum fence along Comox Road. All funds raised through the initiative will go towards the  Kus-kus-sum project.

The wood for the salmon was provided by Central Builders Home Hardware and then cut into salmon shapes by local volunteers, including students at Cumberland and Vanier Schools.

The education program was sponsored by the Peninsula Co-op and The Comox Valley Regional District.

The 440 meters of steel wall that lines the Kus-kus-sum site is used by seals to effectively prey on salmon as they pass the site going down river as juveniles and up river as adults. There is no salt marsh for the salmon to hide in and no channel for them to escape into. Female seals have been recorded placing their young along the wall near the surface of the water. Then these mothers dive down and chase salmon into the wall and up into the mouths of their young. Because of these factors the wall has been nicknamed the “Killing Wall”.

Salmon already have a hard journey going from egg to spawner. From each thousand eggs that are laid, only a few adult salmon survive to continue their species. We initiated this fundraiser as a reminder that restoring Kus-kus-sum will give salmon going up or coming down from the Puntledge, Browns, Morrison and Tsolum rivers a better chance of survival.