Spilyay T ym oo, W arm Springs, Oregon
Page 2
December 31, 2 0 0 9
Schoolhouse salmon released into creek
B y T erri H a rb e r
Spilyay Tymoo
— —
tures,” but a sudden change in
water temperature could cause
them stress, he said of the litde
salmon.
The Warm Springs students
could be seen checking on the
fish at least once a day, often
more frequently, while the fish
lived on campus, said Sarah
Bennett, one o f the teachers.
It was first planned last year
to bring some baby salmon to
Warm Springs students so they
could watch them grow from
eggs to fish. However, the tim
ing was wrong because the chil
dren would have been out of
school when the salmon would
have been released, Bennett
said.
The fish have proved them
selves great little tools for teach
ing the children about life cycles,
the environment and how im
» w ®
■d-’V'
T in y Chinook salmon that had
called Warm Springs Elemen
tary School their home for sev
eral weeks were released into
Shitike Creek on Dec. 16 to be
gin their long, perilous journey
to Deschutes River, then the
Pacific Ocean and, eventually,
back.
Fewer than one in 100 of the
salmon are expected to survive
th e lengthy trip, said Jens
Lovtang, a fisheries manage
ment supervisor with Natural
Resources.
Warm Springs Chief Delvis
Heath compared the salmon to
warriors because both take on
perilous missions. He sang to
the children during a brief cer
emony near the edge o f the
creek.
“These fish you kids have
raised have a long journey,”
Chief Heath told the group of
3rd graders who played host to
the fish that lived in on-campus
incubation tanks. “They will go
to the ocean and not many will
come back.”
At top, the students release
H e also blessed the little fish; and (above) Hewlett-
salmon before they were intro Dubisar and Blueback
duced into their new, natural transfer the fish to buckets.
home. Then three o f the stu
dents, one at a time and repre
senting each class of 3rd grad fall m orning was “unusual,”
ers, carefully emptied plastic Lovtang said.
He estimated the water tem
buckets containing some o f the
salmon into the creek.
perature in the creek to be only
The fish had to be acclimated 30 to 35 degrees that morning,
to the exceptionally cold water much higher than the roughly
before they could be released 50-degree temperature water in
into the creek. Seeing large fro the schoolhouse incubators.
“They prefer colder tempera
zen patches in the water that late
portant the salmon are in their
culture, she said.
“It was very good for the
children,” she said. “They were
very excited about it all.”
School and federal environ
mental officials would like to see
the program become perma
nent.
T h e N atu ral R esources
Branch and the Warm Springs
Natural Fish Hatchery spon
sored the new science project.
Warm Springs has the strongest
Chinook population in the Co
lumbia Basin.
The incubators were set up
by Lisa Hewlett-Dubisar, a fish-
eries b io lo g ist and K evin
Blueback, an animal caretaker at
the hatchery.
Ironically, little salmon at this
stage of development are called
“fry,” Lovtang added.
Legal Aid S ervices of Oregon
provides free assistance to low-
income Oregonians in many civil
cases. Speak with an attorney
during drop-in hours 1 to 4 p.m. on
Terri Harber/Spilyay
Warm Springs Chief Delvis
Heath gives the blessing
before the fish begin their
journey to the ocean.
the first Monday of the month at the
Family Resources Center in Warm
Springs. Or call 385-6944 Monday
through Wednesday between 10 a.m.
and 2 p.m.
Terri Harber/Spilyay
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I n d i a n la w p ro f, to s p e a k a t C O C C
Professor Robert Miller, Na
tive American law professor at
Lewis and Clark Law School,
will speak at the Central Oregon
Community College campus in
Bend in January.
Professor Miller will speak at
4 p.m. on Jan. 21 in Wille Hall
at COCC.
The school is asking that
those interested in attending
please RSVP. Please contact
Justine Connor, COCC Native
American program coordinator,
at 318-3782; o r email
j connor@cocc. edu.
This is a free event. The event
is on a Thursday afternoon, one
of COCC’s highest enrollment
days,
so
parking
is
limited. Come early and utilize
the campus shuttle to ensure a
timely arrival.
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