It’s that time of year again when volunteer streamkeepers call on Burnaby residents to help them release thousands of salmon into local creeks.

On Saturday, April 8, the Eagle Creek Streamkeepers will flush the waterway with thousands of chum salmon, and they’re looking for folks to lend a hand.

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“It’s extremely enjoyable for younger people,” said organizer Nick Kvenich, who has been involved in maintaining the creek for nearly two decades.

What it looked like back then can’t compare to today, he added.

“We saw that the creek was polluted with people dumping garbage,” Kvenich said, noting he spent the first five years removing “seven dumpsters” worth of junk from Burnaby Lake, including eight tonnes of tires.

“After five years, we were getting a little bit frustrated because it had been five years and we didn’t see anything come back,” added the streamkeeper.

But one year a coho salmon returned, something Kvenich said “revitalized everything.”

Last fall, Burnaby streamkeepers recorded the highest chum salmon return in decades in the city, and Eagle Creek was no exception. Some 350 fish returned, said Kvenich. He expects that number to be higher because counters missed a week in 2016. The year before there were only 50.

Kvenich said “there’s a lot of satisfaction” to know he’s helped the local salmon habitat.

“When you have nothing, you see nothing, then all of a sudden you start seeing them, and the numbers you see them in; you don’t have to go to looking for them, they are there.”

As a young boy, he and his father would go out fishing for salmon in the summer. Kvenich said his efforts have allowed him “to return what the sea had given (his) family.”

The April 8 fish release starts at 10 a.m. The event will run until all 50,000 salmon fry have been let go (usually a couple of hours).

Participants are asked to meet at Charles Rummel Park, just off Government Road and Lozells Avenue. Overflow parking is available on Mark Crescent or Kraft Place.