Double Your Impact for Salmon This Summer
Right now, salmon in B.C. are facing a critical moment. Severe climate conditions—drought, wildfire, and flooding—are piling pressure on habitats already damaged by human activities. PSF is taking immediate action to restore three important salmon rivers.
Here’s how you can help now:
- Fund game-changing work to strengthen and restore key salmon watersheds in B.C.’s Interior and Vancouver Island this summer.
- A window of opportunity is open. We’ve identified urgent, high-impact projects that can make an immediate difference for salmon populations preparing for their crucial spawning season.
- Your gift will go twice as far thanks to a donation matching challenge by the Pacific Salmon Endowment Fund Society.
We need your help to raise $100,000 to restore salmon rivers. Your donation will be matched dollar for dollar by the Pacific Salmon Endowment Fund Society, doubling your impact.
Meet the moment for salmon. Donate today.
The story behind the film
Witnessing the sockeye salmon migration at the Adams River is one of Canada’s greatest natural events.
Every four years during a ‘dominant’ cycle, millions of bright red sockeye salmon make the 450-kilometre journey from the mouth of Fraser River near Vancouver, all the way into the Interior of British Columbia. It’s a gruelling journey through canyons and rapids, all while avoiding predators, battling low flows, and persisting through high river temperatures.
2026 is a dominant sockeye year, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world to the Shuswap region of B.C. to see the end of this epic migration in October.
This year, the landscape looks drastically different from the previous dominant sockeye cycle in 2022. That’s because large swathes of the watershed were decimated by the Bush Creek East wildfire three summers ago.
The fire ripped through 45,000 hectares, forced 8,000 people to evacuate, destroyed 270 properties, and caused $240 million in damage. What used to be a lush green forest full of hiking trails is now a barren vista of burned trees.
Out of the ashes, a determined group of partners came together to restore this vital salmon watershed. Led by local First Nation Skwlāx te Secwepemcúl̓ecw, along with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, BC Parks and the Pacific Salmon Foundation, work has begun to restore the Adams’ natural channel complexity.
The goal was to redistribute flows from one channel into many channels. To enable this change, excavators strategically placed woody debris in the river to divert the flow and enhance spawning habitat in time for the scheduled arrival of millions of sockeye this fall.
The Adams River is home to one of the most celebrated salmon runs in the world. In 2010, nearly 4 million sockeye returned to the Adams River. In 2022—another peak year for sockeye—we counted fewer than 350,000. Tens of thousands will visit the site this year to witness their migration and we need to act fast to improve habitat conditions for their return and prevent further declines.
How your gift can help.
PSF has been collaborating with the Little Shuswap Lake Band on the Lower Adams Habitat Restoration Initiative since 2023 following a devastating wildfire in the region. We supported phase one of this nature-based solution, placing numerous log jams to divert the river and create better spawning conditions for sockeye. With your support, we can fund additional channel enhancement work this summer.