Mike Maltais, Staff writer
BREWSTER – Elementary school students at the Brewster, Pateros, and Bridgeport school districts are getting the opportunity to learn about the life cycle of one the region’s most important wildlife resources, Chinook salmon, thanks to Cascade Fisheries of Wenatchee.
Cascade has provided living displays where students can watch the Chinook grow from eggs, to alevin, to fry, and eventually released when they are ready to return to local waters. The salmon eggs are typically delivered to the schools in January and released between April and May.
Cascade Program Specialist Jennifer Herdmann explained that Cascade is one of 14 regional fisheries enhancement groups created ty the state legislature in the 1990’s “to work within the communities we serve to restore and enhance native fish habitat.”
Herdmann said their largest K-12 education program is Schools for Salmon (SFS) where “varying grade levels receive curriculum and/or in-class and in-field lessons centered around students raising salmon in their schools.”
“On an average year we can have 13 or more schools (including a public library and community college) raising salmon from Wenatchee to Bridgeport,” said Herdmann, “each tank holding up to 200 salmon and released into nearby streams.”
The salmon come from partnerships with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) and Yakama Nation Fisheries.
“This year with COVID distance learning we have worked with schools to provide the experience in-person or virtually depending on their student safety protocols,” said Herdmann. “In Douglas and Okanogan counties our fisheries biologist Kristen Kirby has been working with Brewster, Bridgeport, and Pateros to keep their tank program running as well.”
Herdmann said Cascade offers classroom and field exposure from the third grade through college at Wenatchee Valley College.
“Aside from SFS’s tank component we provide lessons and activities such as fish dissections, anatomy/physiology/ecology lessons, community science opportunities (watershed and salmon habitat monitoring), fisheries career exposure, after school programs, river snorkeling, watershed tours, salmon spawning viewing, and community partner education and outreach events (Salmon Fest, Earth Day),” Herdmann said.
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