In the Greater Bangor area:
On another chilly day in February, when the warmth of spring still felt like a distant memory we were all clinging to, we set up our holding tank and chiller in the lobby of the Fields Pond Audubon Center. As they have for the past several years, staff members hiked down to Sedgunkedunk Stream to collect five-gallon buckets of water for the tank. A few days later, a volunteer from Fish Friends arrived with our long-awaited delivery: endangered Atlantic Salmon eggs.
The first few weeks in the tank are largely uneventful. Aside from the occasional ladybug that finds its way in and meets an unfortunate watery end, the salmon eggs rest quietly at the bottom of the tank day after day. Then, one day, a careful observer will notice a tiny dark spot inside the eggs, which have now become “eyed eggs.” A few short weeks later, the eggs hatch, and the partially translucent alevin remain mostly motionless, feeding off what remains of their egg sacs. Slowly but surely, they begin to resemble tiny fish.
From there, it becomes a balancing act between stream temperatures and timing, how long the alevin can go before they need actual food, and when conditions in the stream will give them the best chance at survival. Every year, we have a few spirited conversations about which group will win the lottery of salmon release day: Homeschool Naturalists, Eco Explorers, Forestry for Maine Fish Workshop participants . . . the list goes on. In the end, it all comes down to precise timing and what’s best for the fish.
This year’s lucky crew was our afterschool Eco Explorers program. On Monday, May 11, our small but mighty group caravanned down to Orrington Town Park along the edge of Sedgunkedunk Stream and braved what I can only describe as a billion little black flies—a highly unscientific description my naturalist colleagues may not appreciate, but the tree swallows having a feast certainly did!—to release the salmon into the stream.
The salmon fry prefer the rocky habitats within the stream, where they can hide and stay safe from predators. The students brought a cup of water with the fry inside over to the stream’s edge and carefully transferred them. The fry will remain there for a few years and grow into adults before making their way to the Penobscot River and, eventually, the Atlantic Ocean. We always hope that many more of them survive than typically would have without us raising them through their early stages of life.
After months of having visitors carefully checking on the tank, students in our programs playing games that simulate the Atlantic salmon life cycle, and the steady background hum of the tank’s chiller filling the lobby, we’ll miss these fish friends. And already, we’re looking forward to next year, when we once again get to play a small part in the conservation of these endangered fish.
In the Greater Portland area:
For the fifth year in a row, third graders in all ten elementary schools in the Portland (ME) Public School system raised endangered Atlantic Salmon from egg to fry as part of the Fish Friends program.
In this video, recorded live on May 6, watch as Maine Audubon’s Jane Affleck Fitz and Portland Public Schools’ Trish Day, assisted by volunteer Colby Davidson, release the young fish into the Little River, part of the Androscoggin watershed in Lisbon Falls, and read messages from the students who cared for them.
Due to construction at the Maine Audubon Visitor Center in Falmouth, we weren’t able to host eggs on site this year as we usually do, but thankfully 500 Portland area students stepped up! Salmon eggs arrived in school classrooms in February, and students monitored temperature and conditions and watched the eggs turn first into eyed eggs, then alevin, and then fry.
This unit on life cycle, habitat, and morphology complimented and coincided with the third grade Wabanaki Studies & Life Science curriculum, which focuses on the natural and cultural importance of rivers, dams and human impact, and the Presumpscot River watershed.
Thank you to the teachers and students at Cliff Island School, East End Community School, Gerald E. Talbot Community School, Longfellow Elementary School, Lyseth Elementary School, Ocean Avenue School, Peaks Island School, Presumpscot Elementary School, Reiche Elementary School, and Rowe Elementary School!
