We went on a tour of the Issaquah fish hatchery. The kids were both really interested. The tour guide had this sample of different sizes of baby salmon. He also explained the difference between male and female salmon, and told us there are fossils of super large salmon.
Inside the center, they had some salmon eggs, and some 1 year old salmon. Davis really liked these bas-relief examples of the fish life cycle.
We got to walk over to the river and see where real fish were spawning in the wild. There was also a naturalist checking for recently dead fish and cutting off their tails so that they could keep an accurate count. They leave the bodies in the river to complete the circle of life in that habitat. The hatchery was built in the sixties, and at that time this river was dead. They've been carefully managing it so it's now a thriving ecosystem.
We saw the fish ladder they built to keep the fish from swimming straight through the part of the river where they catch and count the adult fish. There's a metal detector in there so they can see if any of them have a metal tracking device in the snout. They cut off the noses after spawning so that they can see where the hatchery fish came from.
We got to feed some Rainbow Trout little fish food pellets. The tank was getting cleaned in preparation for Salmon Days, so the water was low and a little dark, which made it hard to see the fish, especially in the shade.
Davis spent awhile trying to find the sparkliest rock. I'm not sure he came to an official decision.
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