(Photos by Dave Gershgorn. Above, Dennis Hinton guides a student)

By Judy Pickens
Special to West Seattle Blog

Volunteers Dennis Hinton, Pete Draughon, and Shannon Ninburg were on hand Friday (May 16) to help 52 eager first graders from Roxhill Elementary put 125 coho fry into upper Fauntleroy Creek at the midpoint of release season.

(Above, Shannon Ninburg with students)

By the end of this month, the Fauntleroy Watershed Council will have hosted 22 releases involving about 850 students, preschool through post secondary. Most will have reared their fish through the Salmon in the Schools program coordinated by Seattle Public Utilities.

The fry will grow in the creek for almost a year before heading to saltwater as smolts. To document how many survived since last year, volunteers installed soft traps in the upper and lower creek on March 15 and checked them two or three times daily through May 15.

Of the 21 smolts they counted, 13 would have been fish released last spring by students in the park. Most of the rest would have been “home hatch” from fall 2024 spawning in the lower creek.

(Photos by Dave Gershgorn. Above, Pete Draughon explains aquatic bugs)

“The number of smolts tells us a lot about how healthy the creek is for juvenile salmon,” said Dennis. “It’s an indicator of how clean and cold the water is, how much food they were able to find, and how well vegetation protected them from predators.”

The last release of the season will be for anyone in the community who wants to put a fish in the water on Sunday, June 1, 1:00-3:00 pm at the big bridge in Fauntleroy Park.