Unalaska, AK – The high school's fish hatchery class released 7,488 coho salmon fry into Iliuliuk Creek this week, the final step in their educational ocean ranching journey. Teacher Steven Gregory said the class started with very ripe females that had many eggs and the students did a good job of caring for the fish as they developed.

"This was a good year. We had a bumper crop this year. Probably our second highest total we've ever let go. We started with about 9,000 eggs, had a couple of water mishaps with our water system so we lost about 1,200 to 1,500 fish at various times, but we did pretty good." He said about 20 percent of the fish will survive to return to the creek, spawn, and die.

Each year the class is permitted by the Alaska Department of Fish & Game to catch two females then kill the fish to harvest the eggs. "Once the fish die and the water enters their body cavity the eggs harden and their not usable, so we can't just go get dead fish and use their eggs. They have to be harvested within a pretty small window once they die," Gregory explained.

In addition to learning about fish hatcheries the students study physical oceanography, water quality, habitat, and fish identification. Student Duncan Miller said he learned larger lessons as well. "I learned that our ecosystem is really delicate and you can't really screw around with it, and it made me appreciate what everybody is doing to help it."

The project inspires younger students as well. Ten year-old Taylor Aholla helped release the fish fry into the creek and saw tiny salmon for the first time. He explained that it was all part of a cycle. "They're gonna hatch again and it's just like they'll rotate, like on and on. So the baby fish right not will go down to the ocean, grow up, and come back here."

The fish hatchery project started in 1978 and was one of the first school hatcheries in the state. It's primarily an educational project because local fish stocks are healthy, but it does increase the size of the stock without polluting the environment like fish farming would do. Fish farming means raising the fry then releasing them into contained pens to grow. Ocean ranching means releasing the fry into the water and letting them live a normal life cycle in the wild.