Students Release Classroom Trout into Big Wood River

With enthusiastic wishes for happy swimming in their new home, kids from Hemingway Elementary school gently poured 60 young fingerling rainbow trout from small, paper cups into the the Big Wood River and Heagle Park Pond in Hailey, Idaho.

 

For the past three months, Mrs. Duquette’s 27 students in the Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) program, ranging in age from 7 to 11, participated in the Trout in the Classroom program which culminated in students and parents wading into the edges of the chilly Big Wood River and Heagle Park Pond to release the trout into their new homes.

 

The opportunity for students to raise rainbow trout from eggs to fingerlings was provided by Trout in the Classroom, a nation-wide program coordinated by Trout Unlimited and sponsored here by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.

 

The Hemingway students received 200 sterile rainbow trout eggs from the Hayspur Hatchery on January 26.  Since then, students watched the fish grow from eyed eggs, to alevins with attached yolk sacs living in the tank gravel, to swimming fry with the beginnings of pink stripes along their sides and spots on their backs which will provide camouflage among the rocks in their new habitat.

 

The kids tested the aquarium water quality and documented fluctuations in tank temperature, nitrogen and phosphate levels. They also studied fish development, habitat and behavior, the trout lifecycle, and how human activity affects these. The fishy curriculum even included some aquatic art where kids tried the Japanese art of Gyotaku, painting fish for prints.

 

In the wild, only 15 percent of eggs typically reach spawning age. But the habitat and care provided by the kids resulted in far had a better survival rate at 30 percent.

 

When trout fry reach about two inches in length, the classroom aquarium no longer has sufficient room for all the fish. They must be relocated to a local water body where it is hoped that they will survive long enough to be caught by an angler.

 

“We hope to see many years of Trout in the Classroom where children in the Big Wood River Valley form connections with trout and gain a sense of stewardship for Idaho’s waters,” said Cathy Tyson-Foster, the local Trout Unlimited outreach coordinator.