Gabriel Stearns, a Natural Resource Conservation student at Franklin-Essex-Hamilton BOCES, releases tiny salmon into the Saranac River on Friday.
(Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)
SARANAC LAKE — Melinda Fredenburg will be saying farewell to some of her Bio 104 students at North Country Community College’s commencement ceremony today. On Friday, she said farewell to a different crowd: More than 100 Atlantic salmon that students raised with her this semester on campus.
Fredenburg released the tiny adolescent fish into the Saranac River at the Saranac Lake Fish and Game Club on Friday with aid from students in David Vossler’s Natural Resource Conservation class at the Franklin-Essex-Hamilton BOCES center across the street.
It was a bittersweet moment.
She had a hardy batch of the fish. Out of 120 eggs total, NCCC administrator Sarah Maroun counted 106 fish released — give or take a few.
“That’s good,” Bill Schoch said with a grin. He is a retired DEC fisheries manager and member of the nonprofit Trout Unlimited.
Melinda Fredenburg releases tiny salmon raised with her students at North Country Community College into the Saranac River on Friday. She said she wanted her students to have a hands-on experience and plans to raise salmon on campus every year now.
(Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)
But he said the odds are against these fish. Many of them are destined to die before they are able to grow to maturity and reproduce. But Schoch said his hope is that the lessons Fredenburg’s students learned through this process stick with them much longer than any fish’s lifespan, and that they’ll go out into the world with a passion for protecting fish and the waters the fish call home.
Coming out of the coronavirus pandemic, Fredenburg wanted her environmental science students to have something hands-on to do. She said they’re tired of being in front of a screen or reading a slide show every day.
The excitement over these salmon stretched outside the lab where the tank of growing fish were kept. She said she would overhear students walking by who saw the salmon signs hung on the door get intrigued and that students from other degree programs were stopping in to see the fish.
She plans to do this every year now. It has “perfect timing” for students to see the growth of salmon from start to finish.
Eggs arrive right before the semester begins and they are released when the semester ends.
Colin Amell, a Natural Resource Conservation student at Franklin-Essex-Hamilton BOCES, releases tiny salmon into the Saranac River on Friday. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)
Fredenburg said they got the eggs from the state Department of Environmental Conservation on Jan. 24. They hatched around Valentine’s Day on Feb. 14. They are now in the “fry” stage.
This was her first time ever raising salmon so she relied on Schoch’s knowledge a lot. The Lake Champlain Basin Program and Trout Unlimited supported the project and provided her with the tank, chiller, filter and food.
Fredenburg downplayed the work she put into this. At first she said she just had to make sure the tank was clean and feed them.
Fellow NCCC employee Becky LaDue was quick to jump in and point out that Fredenburg did this every single day.
“She is the mama bear over them,” LaDue said.
Kellan Duffy, a Natural Resource Conservation student at Franklin-Essex-Hamilton BOCES, releases tiny salmon into the Saranac River on Friday.
(Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)
Though while bears typically are predators for salmon, LaDue said Fredenburg was nurturing.
Fredenburg said it was a “personal challenge” for her to see as many survive as she could.
Schoch said Trout Unlimited likes to help with these projects to get students thinking about fish and their place in the ecosystem, and also thinking about protecting the nature these fish call home. Birds and mammals rely on fish for their survival, too.
“Salmon are having real trouble,” Schoch said.
Human intervention in the natural flow of rivers through hydroelectric dams are a big obstacle, literally.
They hinder salmon’s travel upstream to spawn, and make their journeys downstream incredibly deadly. Schoch said any travel through a dam leaves many mangled in the turbines.
He said this happens more on the West Coast where there are more dams. The Columbia River used to have “huge salmon runs,” he said. But now their population has drastically declined. Washington State recently released a report that several species of Pacific salmon are nearing extinction, and those that aren’t are still struggling with reduced numbers.
If salmon can’t complete their life cycle naturally, he said it’s impossible to keep up with stocking fish from hatcheries.
The salmon released on Friday will spend two years in the river, feeding and growing to the smolt stage. They will hang out between the Lake Flower Dam, upstream from where they were released, and the Franklin Falls Dam. Then, they will migrate down to Lake Champlain.
This is a treacherous journey. There are seven dams between here and the big lake and Schoch said there will be death at each dam.
For the ones who make it, they will feed on smelt in the lake and grow to an average size of 5 pounds. After a few years, they will return to the Saranac River one fall to spawn.
As Fredenburg watched her months of hard work swim downriver on Friday, she wished her fledgling salmon safe travels.
