Program helps with repopulation of salmon
A string of luck is helping budding scientists in Grand Falls-Windsor gain hands-on learning with an environmentally important project.
Exploits Valley Intermediate has partnered with the Environment Resources Management Association (ERMA) — a not-for-profit association that specializes in fresh-water biology services and works with partners to foster public understanding and education of Atlantic salmon — for the second annual Salmon release program.
Tom Caines, who is the lead teacher on getting the program started and looking after it, says a series of luck led to this amazing program.
The partnership began last year, Caines says, after a chance meeting between himself and ERMA’s Kim Thompson at a mutual friend’s house.
“We got talking and it turned out they were looking to start it and I was looking to find it,” Caines says.
The teacher has come full circle. He did the growing and releasing as part of the Atlantic Salmon Federation Fish Friends Program as a student when he was growing up on the south coast.
“But then it died,” he said of the program, adding the Fluvarium kept it alive from Clarenville (East), and a man at DFO in Twillingate has the program in that area, but there was nothing in Grand Falls-Windsor.
“The chance meeting with ERMA just spurred things on.”
Caines said the company that makes the chiller — the equipment used to keep the tank temperature at the correct temperature for adequate fry growth — does not exist anymore. However, luck stayed on their side.
“It just so happened that
Lori Barry came on our staff and she used to do the program years ago in Millcrest (Academy),” Caines says. “When they moved out of Millcrest, she knew which storage room she put everything in and we just went over and found it.”
They tweaked the program this year after some challenges last year. They are now doing regular 50 per cent water changes in the tank and added some oxygenation and it seems to be going better so far, Caines says.
Students can view the tank with the salmon fry in the Grade 8 corridor.
“We are supposed to get the salmon when they are eggs; two years in a row now we’ve had a COVID shutdown, so we get them when they are at the alevin stage,” Caines says. “They will grow them until the end of May and then we will take them down and release them into the river.”
Until then, the Grade 8 students will take part in water quality testing, measuring the pH, phosphate level and dissolved oxygens levels of both the tank water and water from the Exploits River as part of their science curriculum.
“The kids seem to enjoy it,” Caines says. “They are always checking on them going by.”
Being part of the program is beneficial to the students, Caines says.
“You have community involvement,” he says. “You have the community aspect put into something and they can see this is in your backyard, in your river, this is what’s going on. You are restocking salmon stocks in your backyard.”
“I think it is a good way to help restock salmon populations,” Grade 8 student Magnus Gillingham says.
The students are also gaining an understanding of salmon growth and water systems.
“It makes it more personal for them when they can see it’s here as opposed to me giving them a chart with
‘this is your phosphate levels in the water,’” Caines says. “They can actually see it.”
Pre-COVID there was a plan to take a group down to the river and have a science day, release the salmon and do samples, Caines says. However, it’s now hard to make a concrete plan since COVID-19 came into the picture.
Last year, due to COVID19, they had to select a group of Grade 9s and they walked to the boat launch where they were met by ERMA’s Terry Paul and Kim Thompson. They did the release and walked back to school.
“We will definitely be part of the release,” Caines says. “We just don’t know what it’s going to look like yet.”