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Wednesday April 23, 2014

Salmon release

As April comes to an end, the fall-run Chinook salmon outmigration period will soon be winding down, as juvenile salmon make their way throughout the watersheds of California’s Central Valley towards the ocean. This also signifies the conclusion of another successful year of the Salmon in the Classroom program, which helps K-12 grade students throughout the state learn about the salmon lifecycle, and the difficult journey these fish undertake in order to survive to adulthood and return to spawn. Many classrooms also raised salmon eggs in their classrooms. FISHBIO visited a few local classrooms to walk students through the Salmon Survival Pyramid, or the number of fish that survive to each stage of their lifecycle.

Recently, we accompanied 4th grade students on an afternoon field trip to Knights Ferry. These students had received 60 salmon eggs from the local hatchery in early January, and watched the fish hatch and grow from eggs into alevin in a tank at their school. Now that the fish had developed into fry, students released them into the Stanislaus River to begin their long journey downstream to the ocean. We hope they’ll be the lucky ones that make it!

This photo recently won our “Best of the Month” photo contest. Check out past winners on our Flickr site!

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