From the President
By Deene Almvig

It’s a short drive from the Marblemount hatchery to the mouth of Bacon Creek. As Ray wheeled the flat-bed truck loaded with three totes of coho salmon carcasses onto the Bacon Creek Road, I could not help but marvel at the greenish water as it tumbled over the boulder-strewn bottom on its way to the Skagit River. We continued up the single-lane dirt road passing second-growth evergreens dripping with light-green moss, finally arriving at our destination – a narrow bridge over Bacon Creek. Now the work began. We each took a pitchfork and began pitching carcasses into the creek. One hundred, three hundred, five hundred and at seven hundred and two the work was done. Satisfaction settled in our minds as we watched the last of the carcasses drift down the creek knowing that this spring the newly emerging fry will have something to feed on. That is what this fish-tossing trip is about. Our west-side rivers are lacking in the nutrients so common in the streams to the east. To survive in reproductive numbers, our salmon fry need protein and a significant source is the ocean-derived nutrients carried back to the stream of origin in the bodies of their parents. What is also amazing to me is the research that indicates ocean-derived nutrients, deposited from the bodies of returning salmon, have been found in plant life as far as 50 feet from the stream. With the last of the carcasses in the creek Ray and I turned the truck around and headed back to the hatchery content in the thought that maybe we had just contributed the means for a few more juvenile salmon to make their way to the sea.

Thanks Ray, Dick, Fred, Bruce and Larry for all your help with SFEG’s nutrient enhancement project. Through your efforts we are approaching 5000 carcasses in the Skagit River tributaries.

On another note I would like to congratulate the members of SFEG’s Fundraising Committee, in particular Dan Ballard and Bruce Freet. Through their efforts the committee has secured more than $14,000 to fund the Junior Stream Stewards Program for Skagit Watershed Middle School students. Well done.

Volunteer Dick Raisler pitches a coho carcass into Bacon Creek.

These carcasses will provide vital food source for many scavengers, including eagles and other birds, aquatic insects, juvenile salmon, and even the surrounding plants.