Unalaska City School District students released around 1,400 hatchery-raised silver salmon into Iliuliuk River May 23. They began working with the fish in November, with river surveys starting in August.
Science and math teacher Kyle Holloway taught the fisheries class this year. He said it was a learning experience for him, and that he worked to instill lifelong lessons in science.
Rylee Lekanoff is a senior at the high school. She said the hatchery fish are sourced directly from the river they eventually return to.
“We get up to three spawning males and three spawning females,” Lekanoff said. “Then we harvest the eggs and the milk and then fertilize the eggs and however many [fry] last, that's how many we put out.”
“Be careful playing out in the rivers because there are living things out there that, if you step on the rocks, you'll just squish an entire nest of 5,000 baby fish,” she added.
The learning began in the classroom, long before students worked with live fish. Another senior, Luois Amora, said the class learned about the salmon life cycle, which gave them a foundation before heading out into the field. His favorite part of class was watching the fish grow.
“We’ve seen them when they were babies and they only had their big heads popping out while they were still in their egg sacs,” Amora said. “Now they’re fully grown.”
Amora said his takeaway is the importance of being thoughtful about the environment.
“On an island like this, the fishing industry is definitely prominent,” he said. “We want to make sure that our fish and our seafood is of quality, and we’re taking care of them. I guess I didn’t really value that until I took fisheries.”
Over 100 elementary school students and a few community members stopped by to help release the fish into the river.
