This year BC experienced increasingly variable weather patterns and it was interesting to observe the effect on Bee Creek.
A warm dry summer is normal for Vancouver Island, yet the increased heat levels are new. Peaks of close to 30 degrees are certainly a new experience.. Summertime water temperatures reached 13 degrees on Bee Creek and dropped to 7C by season end in October.
Other environmental changes included wind and rain variations. Being open to Pacific wind and rain storms has had limited yet noticable effect on Bee Creek. Wind storms are more frequent and push tides into the lagoon and along with normal high and low tides flow. The mouth of Bee Creek was flooded in October.
Normally the mouth of the creek holds more trout than the other sites flowing down from around six sources in the escarpment. In October we saw fewer and larger trout, which poses interesting questions of what happens to the trout when tidal surges of fresh and salt water push into the creek.
This year the old stone bridge south of Pendray House was replaced and monitoring was halted for a month during construction. The only noticeable changes to the flow of the creek were east of the new bridge, where the creek is finding its new way around logs, trees and rocks.
Overall the creek is faring well with healthy trout numbers similar to last year. The new monitoring season will begin in May 2022!
2021 Monitoring Summary Spreadsheet
Bee Creek Cutthroat 