Every spring, students from Cascade View Elementary School stream out of yellow school buses. In their hands, precious cargo: approximately 500 Coho salmon fingerlings. The salmon have already spent two months in the Soos Creek Hatchery, and then are supplied to the children. Sabey adds to the bounty by supplying another 35,000 fingerlings. It has been very exciting to watch them grow from eggs into tiny salmon, and now it is time to set them free.
Sabey Corporation sponsors the annual launch of the young salmon into Riverton Creek, which winds behind one of the Sabey Data Centers at Intergate.East in Tukwila. From there, the young fish spend the first half of their lives in freshwater streams, gradually migrating to the Puget Sound, where they will mature. In approximately three years, they will begin the long journey back to their spawning grounds where they will deposit and fertilize eggs and die.
We look forward to welcoming the children each year in celebrating this ritual of life that is so much a part of the Pacific Northwest.
Many thanks to Don Scanlon, a local Tukwila resident, for his help and dedication over the years. Don has been both a fountain of knowledge and a patient guide for the kids.
View more about the Salmon Fry's journey after we release them.