Salmon Squad: Fish-raising program connects area pupils with nature

Young fish raised by the Salmon Squad at Errol Village elementary school were set free this week in a creek in Plympton-Wyoming to make their way to Lake Huron.

Several pupils won the right to release a salmon in a “fish lottery” and a stream of parents and youngsters arrived at the creek on O’Brien Road after school to watch.

Teacher Matthew Coqu and Paul Heckley, both Bluewater Anglers members, scooped young salmon “smolt” out of a tank and dropped them into jars of water pupils carried to the creek.

Coqu has led the roughly 15-pupil Salmon Squad for two years now.

Errol Village is one of 19 area schools participating in the Bluewater Angler program, which supplies equipment and fertilized salmon eggs for pupils to raise and release, while learning about the ecosystem and local sport fishery.

“I’m a huge, avid angler,” Coqu said. “I love it.”

He joined other club members on a trip last fall to an Owen Sound river to collect salmon eggs for the group’s hatchery in Point Edward, near the Blue Water Bridge, and for the school mini-hatchery program.

Each school gets gear, including a tank, filters and refrigeration system to keep the water at the right temperature.

“Chinook salmon are cold-water fish,” Coqu said. “Their ideal temperature is like 10 C.”

“These fish eat a lot,” which means tanks must be cleaned twice a day, he added. That cleaning and other activities help keep Salmon Squad members involved.

About 35 fertilized eggs were delivered to Errol Village school in November.

“This year, the fish actually started hatching within days,” Coqu said. “It’s really neat.”

Initially, tiny alevin-stage fish have a sac attached to their underbelly that provides nutrients for their first month of life.

But they are already fun for the pupils to watch.

“They just see these little fish-looking shapes,” Coqu said. “They start kind of hopping around” and eventually the yolk sac shrinks and the fish begin to swim.

Errol Village keeps its salmon tank in the lobby, where it attracts lots of attention from visitors and pupils waiting to be picked up after school.

“We haven’t had a single floater this year,” Coqu said. “We haven’t lost a single fish.”

Two Salmon Squad kids wrote an article about the program for this year’s Bluewater Anglers Salmon Derby program, while others painted a background for the tank.

“It’s a thing of beauty,” Coqu said.

Members also helped organize a school-wide art contest to come up with a design for a wooden salmon silhouette provided by the Bluewater Anglers, and joined in other activities supporting the program, including a fundraiser for another piece of equipment.

“It teaches them a little bit about responsibility,” Coqu said.

“The big one is just connecting them with nature and what we have around us. I want these kids to know how previous our resources are.”

“I’d love for more kids to get involved with fishing,” Coqu added. “That’s obviously a huge goal of the Bluewater Anglers.”

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