This fall, salmon are returning to their birthplaces to complete their life cycle, and a Bellingham fishery enhancement group is inviting citizens to see it in real time.
The Nooksack Salmon Enhancement Association is hosting a salmon sighting event at Whatcom Creek on Nov. 8 from noon to 3 p.m. while chum and coho salmon return to Whatcom County creeks to lay eggs this fall.
Salmon sighting events give visitors an opportunity to learn about salmon from NSEA staff while observing them in local creeks during spawning season. Sighting events are open-house, free to attend for all ages and provide take-home outreach and educational materials that teach eventgoers about salmon and the different species in Whatcom County.
Whatcom Creek, located in Maritime Heritage Park, sees a return of chum salmon around November, according to Sarah Brown, the Stewardship Program Manager for NSEA.
“A few dozen” chum salmon are typically reported each year in Maritime Heritage Park during late October and mid-November, Brown said. “Maritime Heritage gets lots of salmon every year, so between September and now, it just recently got a historic run of chinook salmon.”
While coho salmon return to creeks around the same time as chum salmon, Brown said that Maritime Heritage Park usually lacks coho salmon. Deer Creek, east of Ferndale, receives coho salmon each spawning season, according to Josh Geller, a volunteer with NSEA’s salmon spotting program.
During spawning season, Pacific salmon return to their natal streams to lay and fertilize their eggs, according to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s page on salmon viewing. The process marks the end of an adult salmon’s life cycle; these “zombie” salmon slowly die after spawning.
Statistics from NSEA’s salmon spotting program during the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 spawning seasons report chum salmon sightings in Whatcom Creek begin as early as September, during the chinook salmon spawning season, but become frequent around late October.
According to the salmon spotting program’s page, where salmon sightings are reported by volunteers, two chum salmon in Maritime Heritage Park were spotted on Sept. 30, and one was spotted on Oct. 20.
Both yearly salmon counts and exact return dates are complicated to predict, said PJ Heusted, a student and salmon hatchery worker at Bellingham Technical College.
According to Heusted, the current cohort of chum salmon was spawned from salmon returning in 2021 after severe flooding in Whatcom County.
“So we’re expecting that the fish will be coming back soon, but we’re also expecting that our numbers might be a bit lower because we’re managing those impacts of all of the parents of these fish being in lower quantities,” she said.
Salmon often appear in creeks after large rain events because of the high creek flow, said Heusted.
Geller reports salmon activity in Deer Creek during 2024 rose after an atmospheric river.
“It’s usually a big rain that will drive them out of the Nooksack and up into Deer Creek,” he said. “So first rainstorm that’s one and a half to two inches both of the years that I’ve been here has kind of been the trigger.”
The goal of salmon sighting is to build the community’s connection to salmon by letting them observe and learn about why they matter, Brown said.
“It’s really hard for people to care about things that they can't see, and salmon are really prevalent in our local economy, in our environment and the cultures in this area,” she said.
Carden Mercier (he/she) is a City Life reporter for The Front. This quarter is his first publishing for The Front; he is currently a sophomore at Western Washington University seeking a degree for news/editorial journalism. Outside of writing for The Front, he is a hobbyist digital artist and writer and can often be found exploring Bellingham for new spots to eat. He can be contacted at cardenmercier.thefront@gmail.com.
