Sammy goes to school

There are approximately 36 primary schools in our catchment area ranging in size from 3 pupils in the Cabrach to over 100 in the larger urban schools. The Trust invite 6 schools to participate in our salmon goes to school educational project each year.

 The project starts with a talk with a slide show explaining the life cycle of salmon, the type of habitat that is ideal for juvenile fish, the predators that salmon encounter in the rivers and at sea and the importance of good water quality.

The children are presented with a mini hatchery (aquarium) with about 100 salmon eggs which they look after for several weeks whilst the eggs hatch out into alevins. They check the water temperature 3-4 times a day and change ice packs to keep the water temperature as cool as possible. If the temperature exceeds 15 degrees centigrade for a prolonged period the fish die from lack of oxygen  which is sometimes the problem caused by the central heating. 

Once the fish are strong enough, the children release them in their local burn. Some weeks later the children are shown how we monitor fish populations by electro-fishing and they, hopefully, find some of the salmon fry that they reared and released. During this same outing, they carry out kick tests to find and identify the bugs and beasties that young fish prey on during their fresh water phase of their life cycle. 

The children enjoy the experience of taking the responsibility of looking after the fish and learn many aspects of the natural world that they may not encounter. We hope that some of them may develop a desire to try fishing themselves and become life long anglers. They will also have learnt the importance of caring for their environment by not discarding litter and rubbish and not to dispose of any substance that will cause pollution.

RELEASE OF SALMON FRY BY SCHOOLS

The Trust is grateful to Scottish Natural Heritage who fund 50% of our annual running costs of this project.