Thursday, August 27, 2009





So Curtis and I volunteered at this Fish Hatchery a little while back. Here is the little fishes that we were sorting through for them.

First we would put them to sleep. (they look dead)


Then we would send them through the blue machine next to Curtis's arm, which would check to make sure the tiny, tiny piece of metal in the fish's nose is there. This is how they will know in 5 years when the salmon come back to the hatchery to be harvested, which is theirs. It's really cool stuff!

You can't see the blue machine really well, but the two pipes shoot the fish out. The one over the net means that the fish's piece of metal is gone (or not there, where they don't tag every single fish). And you can see the fish are waking back up.

In the farther part, where the two long metal tanks are. That is where they have really little baby fish. They are so much fun to look at. See what they do is, harvest eggs from full grown (usually 5 year old) salmon (pink's, coho, king) and bring up thousands and thousands of little baby fish. They help them grow to the size of the ones that we are checking and then release them into the ocean. So this is not a salmon farm, just a hatchery. They do this to help with the fishing community. There are two hatchery's here. I have pictures of the other one I will post soon.