Local students helping boost Atlantic salmon stocks

[Spiel]

Local students helping boost Atlantic salmon stocks

 

 

By Caitlin den Boer

January 22, 2008

The Trentonian

 

 

Quinte area students will be giving Mother Nature a helping hand this year as they boost Ontario’s Atlantic salmon population.

 

On Friday, 100 Atlantic salmon eggs were dropped off at Prince Charles public school in Quinte West and V.P. Carswell elementary.

 

C.M.L. Snider school in Wellington and Massassaga-Rednersville public school are also part of the salmon restoration program, which was launched in 2006.

 

The program, which is sponsored by the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters, works with Gr. 4 and 6 students in the greater Toronto area and now as far east as Trenton.

 

“In our first year we had 24 schools in Ontario involved, this year we have 47,” said Earl Martin, who will oversee the program at Prince Charles.

 

The salmon eggs, which are farmed at Harwood Hatchery, will spend the remaining winter months in the classrooms of the involved schools before being released into the Cobourg Brook in Ganaraska in May.

 

“Survival rates will vary,” said Chris Robinson, Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters biologist and Atlantic Salmon Restoration Program Coordinator. “We’ve had anywhere from one to 80 or 90 left over. The biggest problem is merely overfeeding them (salmon).”

 

Since April 2006, the Lake Ontario Atlantic Salmon Restoration Program has stocked almost 700,000 Atlantic salmon into the Credit River, Duffins Creek, and Cobourg Brook.

 

For more information on the restoration program please visit, www.bringbackthesalmon