Day 251 – Life, Death, and Recycling

9

September 7, 2016 – Life is a cycle, and it always ends with death.

You may look at this photo and see death, but I see the start of a new cycle of life.

Pacific salmon die after they reproduce. Their carcasses provide nutrients to the watershed, and that helps nourish the fry that emerge months after their parents spawn and cover their eggs in the gravel where they develop over the winter.

So while this may seem gruesome, it’s not, it’s all a part of the next cycle of life.

Sometimes you need to stop and see that there is another other side to what you think you see.

Today was spent out in the field, up on the Upper Pitt, seining and spawning sockeye salmon. I have always looked forward to this program every year because it signifies the beginning of my broodstock season. It’s always the first egg take I go on. Until this year anyway. As of this year I am working with a few new projects and one of those, close to home, is on a glacial fed system, which means collections in July and August, and that was pretty awesome.

But I still look forward to going out on the Pitt because I love the area, I love the lake, I love the environment, and I love the crew. So really, I just keep on volunteering to spend a couple of days up here on the Pitt in the first week of September, before I find myself in the depths of October and the crappy cold and rainy weather that generally accompanies that.

So, until then….a boat ride, a group of awesome people, a net full of fish, and a few hours collecting eggs and milt.

This is work.

Pretty rough, isn’t it?

116 Photos in 2016 – 34. Recycled