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After growing salmon from eggs and learning about their life cycle and importance to Oregon, 4J students released the fish into the wild at Alton Baker Park.
Emma Roche had a simple wish for her salmon fry, Josie, as she released her into the Willamette River.
“I wish my fish would have a good life and live all the way,” said the third grade student at Willagillespie Community School. “And not be eaten by any predators.”
Josie was one of thousands of Chinook salmon fry released in Eugene’s Alton Baker Park during the culmination of a two-month education in the life cycle of Oregon’s state fish.
Six thousand Chinook salmon eggs were distributed to 53 classrooms in 4J schools in mid-October. During the next two months, third and fourth graders observed the eggs as they developed, from eyed egg to alevin and finally, small, wiggly fry ready to be released.
On Thursday, more than 1,100 students let 1,000 of the fishes go in Alton Baker Park, sending off the fish by giving them a name and making a wish. (The remainder will be released during additional field trips.) From the park, the fry begin a treacherous journey down the Willamette River and — for the small number that do manage to survive — into the Pacific Ocean.
The program is done in partnership with both the Eugene Water & Electric Board, which has an education partnership with 4J, and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Fish Eggs to Fry program.
Tana Shepard, the K-12 climate, energy and conservation specialist for 4J and coordinator of the partnership between 4J and EWEB that funds the program, said that students have spent months learning about the fish life cycle, status as a keystone species in Oregon and importance to Indigenous culture in Oregon.
Some teachers leaned in even beyond the provided resources, Shepard said, with classes independently making posters about the salmon life cycle, drawing salmon and making stuffed salmon to hang in their classroom.
Learning about salmon means learning about the slim chances that a single salmon survives the whole way to the ocean. Many, like Emma, explicitly wished their fish wouldn’t die.
“I wish he didn’t get eaten,” Henry Peterson, a 9-year-old third grade student at Willagillespie, said of his aspiration for his salmon fry, Hank.
Carter Grooms, 8, wished his fish, Carter Jr., would make it through the ocean and back. “And that he would become good fertilizer when he died,” he added.
The reality of death was also shared via mini-game. The students played “Close Encounters of the Salmon Kind,” a cross between “Sharks and Minnows” and an obstacle course where some were salmon and others were the predators trying to eat them.
Construction near the Cuthbert Amphitheater meant the schools moved their salmon fry release spot from where they’ve been released in previous years. But releasing the salmon fry this year in a spot near the DeFazio Pedestrian/Bike Bridge with vegetation in the water has been a success, she said.
“It seems like the salmon are happier getting into the water this year than they have been in the past,” Shepard said. “There’s a lot of little leaves and plants. We’ve actually been seeing them start eating right away.”
The eggs came from the Willamette Fish Hatchery in Oakridge. Shepard said this year is the first time in a few years they were able to get the eggs from their home stream and not the South Santiam Fish Hatchery, due to wildfire-caused water quality issues near Oakridge.
It’s a full-circle moment for the fry. “The mother and father salmon of these fish that these kids are raising had to swim right by this park,” Shepard said.
Releasing the salmon also means saying goodbye to small, cute animals that children may have gotten attached to. On Thursday, tears fell.
For 8-year-old Crimson Sea, who is also in the third grade at Willagillespie, goodbye was a little complicated. Sea released the fish with her wish: “That she would never die, and have a good life.” But the little salmon, whom she named Ella, kept swimming toward her instead of down the river until she walked away.
“Remember, Ella needed real food,” her chaperone and mother, Shawna Sea, said when Crimson looked sad. “She was getting a little tired. She’s going to be happier in the river.”
