A New Day for Forage Fish

Project Watershed is celebrating Surf Smelt Day on October 25th! Surf Smelt Day is organized by the Coastal Forage Fish Network (CFFN) and will be celebrated across the Salish Sea.

Surf smelt spawn every month of the year and the most eggs are usually found in the late summer/early fall. Surf smelt used to make up a large commercial fishery in the Salish Sea, and before that were an important staple in some Indigenous food fisheries.

Surf smelt use coarse sandy and pebbly beaches to spawn 1000s of eggs at time. Beaches with overhanging vegetation are especially important in keeping the eggs cool and moist on warm days.  Surf smelt eggs have a special sticky patch that attaches to a sand grain as an anchor so that when the tide goes out they stay nestled on the beach. The eggs are translucent and are around 1 – 1.2 mm in diameter, slightly larger than sand lance eggs. The eggs will incubate on the beach for about 2 weeks before tiny, larval fish emerge.

Surf smelt have been absent from much of the Northern Salish Sea since the CFFN has started looking for them despite a once abundant population at the turn of the last century.  Unfortunately, these tiny fish are losing their nursery habitat. They only spawn on beaches that fit their unique needs such as having specific sand grain sizes with ample access to oxygenated, clean marine water.  Modifications to shorelines through riprap, seawalls, pollution and climate change can destroy or deteriorate these beaches and it is unclear if they are able to move to new spawning habitats.

One main focus of Project Watershed’s Forage Fish Citizen Science program is to identify beaches where surf smelt and other beach spawners like Pacific sand lance are spawning. If you would like to assist with this important task, come out and celebrate Surf Smelt Day with us on October 25th. We will be hosting a special surf smelt beach survey at Kye Bay starting at 8 am. If that date doesn’t work for you, our winter beach surveys for Pacific sand lance start early in November and continue into February. You can sign up for one or multiple events.

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