The annual Goodbye Fry event at the Buck Creek Hatchery and Nature Centre in Houston is being broken into two parts this year.
Instead, a See Ya Smolts event is set for Saturday with a BioBlitz on June 13.
“In September when we were looking for broodstock, we met up with a series of unfortunate events and that caused us to not have any eggs in our hatchery nor any fry to release in June,” said Arocha Northern B.C. Manager Cindy Verbeek.
She added the hatchery had fry from last year becoming pre-smolts that were ready for release.
“Fry is the fish that comes into the creek and spends a year where it was born before it goes to the ocean,” said Verbeek.
She added the fry release would happen in June to avoid washing them into the ocean with spring runoff.
“When you’re releasing the fry at this stage, so pre-smolts, this is the stage where they will be going out to the ocean and they ride that spring wave down the river,” Verbeek said.
The initial release event will just be releasing smolt into Buck Creek while the BBQ and open house would still happen with the BioBlitz.
Verbeek added the number of smolts being released is limited, hoping to have the first 60 kids release a salmon.
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