British Columbia

Project Location

BC Coastal Within the boundaries of the Village of Sayward (60 km north of Campbell River).

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Fact Sheet (PDF, 186 Kb)

Common Wildlife

Trumpeter Swans
Northern Pintail
American Wigeon
Northern Goshawk
Dolly Varden
Marbled Murrelet
River Otter
Mallard
Green-winged Teal
Black Bear
Cougar
Steelhead

In This Section

Salmon River Estuary

Highlights

The Salmon River Estuary project complex consist of over 200 hectares of intertidal and backshore coastal habitats which are either held by Ducks Unlimited Canada and its partners or managed as conservation reserves by the BC Ministry of Water, Land & Air Protection (MWLAP).

For waterfowl, the Salmon River estuary is the only significant migration stopover and feeding site along a relatively steep and rugged 250 km stretch of coastline between Campbell River and Port Hardy at the north end of Vancouver Island.

This project complex is a Pacific Estuary Conservation Program (PECP) project area and is representative of the program’s diverse approaches to conserve BC’s estuaries. The complex consists of government conservation reserves, past land purchases of the Nature Trust of BC, lands formerly held by MacMillan Bloedel and transferred to PECP, and the most recent 2002 purchase of lowland forests of spruce and hemlock on the south side of the estuary.

Background

The Salmon River estuary’s strategic location and low gradient supports all five BC salmon species, hundreds of migrant waterfowl, and coastal deer and black bear. Estuary habitats consist of a diverse mix of channels, mudflats, eelgrass and sedge meadows, with backshore habitats of braided river channels, spruce and hemlock forests and meadows. A discrete population of approximately 150 Trumpeter Swans winters in the area.

The community of Sayward lies to the west of the estuary, and has been supported economically by commercial fishing and the Kelsey Bay logging operation headquarters just to the north. The estuary shows the impact of past logging-related activities (log sorts, booming, breakwaters, and shoreline fill activities). In the 1970’s the Nature Trust of BC acquired several small islands in the center of the estuary, and in 1990, Ducks Unlimited Canada and the PECP partners negotiated the transfer of the westernmost intertidal marshes from MacMillan Bloedel.

Over 100 hectares of intertidal foreshore are held by MWLAP under a provincial conservation reserve, and the 2002 PECP purchase of the Matthew property brings considerable coastal forest habitats to the total conservation holdings. All holdings will eventually be designated a provincial Wildlife Management Area.