Fish Friends Education Program – Purchase of new chiller units

The Fish Friends Program was first implemented by the Atlantic Salmon Federation in 1992. Since then, and with support from SCNL (financial and in-kind), the Fish Friends Program has grown continually and there are now some 70 schools throughout Newfoundland and Labrador involved on an annual basis. The life expectancy of the incubation units that are used by each participating school is approximately ten years (give or take a year or so). Some of these incubation units have already began to fail and unless we begin replacing these old incubation units with new ones this award winning program will not be able to continue. There are several important lesson themes that run through the program such as: Stewardship, Sustainability, Life in Freshwater, Migration, Changes in Habitat, Adaptation, and so forth. In addition students receive live salmon eggs which they raise in the incubation units in their classrooms and eventually release the resulting salmon and trout fry into nearby local waterways. This nurturing process helps to create a sense of responsibility in the students to look after ‘their’ in their classroom incubator and when they release them into the wild. Most importantly, this program develops an interest in our recreational sportfish and the recreational fisheries supported by them. By so doing more students are likely to become involved in recreational fisheries and future efforts to protect and manage them wisely, which is the main goal of the program.