Fish Education

I had the honor of tagging along with Morgan's 4th grade class to the Dworshak Fish Hatchery last week.  It was very educational.

This is the fish ladder where they go from the river to the fish hatchery.  Something in them tells them to travel back to where they were born to spawn (lay eggs) so some of them end up here.

This is a bunch of adult Steelhead (a type of Salmon).  They migrate to the ocean and live there a few years and then come back to their spawning grounds.  Eggs are harvested from the females and "milt" from the males.  Sadly they die in that process.  The fish are given to the food bank.

This is a bunch of young fish that have been raised from eggs.

Eggs that have been harvested and fertilized.  Morgan's classroom will receive fertilized Steelhead eggs to take care of and watch grow in a fish tank in their classroom.  In a couple months, the students will get to release their fish into one of the local streams.

The fertilized eggs are placed in trays that you can see in the stacks in the background.  Each tray holds the eggs from a single female.  A Steelhead produces about 6500 eggs.  That's a lot of eggs!

See?  I told you it was educational!