Issaquah Salmon Hatchery

Quote: "When you feel neglected, think of the female salmon, who lays 3,000,000 eggs but no one remembers her on Mother's Day"

It was Spawning Day at Issaquah Hatchery - a day that just can't be missed. We went last year and it was so facinating so I wanted to go again - this time with my camera.

There are hundreds of Salmon below waiting to jump up the ladder. Because there was so many fish already in the tanks they had to close the ladder so the poor Salmon were jumping and it wasn't getting them anywhere.

Here they are after going up the ladder into the holding tanks. The Salmon were HUGE this year.

So on Spawning Day (happens a couple of days out of year) - there are men in the tanks that take the fish out. They have this guy with a metal stick that beats them a couple of times on the head (very dramatic. The hatchery lady told us that Salmon have different pain receptors and that they feel more of sensation than pain - how do they know? I think they are bluffing just to make us all feel better).

Then they sort - male and female. This picture shows the hatchery worker cutting open a female salmon and all her eggs coming out:

The males they squirt out milt (Preston says water) - they put it in tiny cups and then transfer it all to a bucket:

They they put them through these metal sensors and they are trying to find the metal tag that records a bunch of stuff about the salmon. Here is the bin with all the females:

And the bin with males.

Bucket of eggs:


On our drive home Preston recaped for me exactly what happens:

"They get the eggs from mommy fishes and water from the daddy fishes and they mix it together and it grows little fishes. They get bigger and swim to the ocean and then they come back and find their mommy when they get huge."

As much as the quote above reflects how mother Salmon feel - how sad that these little fishes never get to meet their parents. Even though they aren't taught anything from their parents they know exactly how to be a Salmon and come back to where they were born. Animals are just so amazing to me!