The Richmond community has become a meaningful part of GSSA’s work, and we couldn’t be more excited about a salmon smolt net pen acclimation project right in Richmond’s backyard! It’s a win for the salmon, a win for the city, and a win for local fishermen and women.
Thanks to help from friends like Larry Lewis, executive director at the Richmond Police Activities League (RPAL), we’ve been able to introduce and educate local kids, teens, and adults to the salmon lifecycle as well as the environmental, health, and economic benefits these fish bring to California.
Whether it’s heading out in the dark with a curious group of locals for an educational fish release or watching boatloads of excited (and tired), kids show up at 5:00 a.m. to go out and catch their very first salmon and fill their family freezer at home; growing salmon awareness in Richmond is something everyone gets to be a part of.
By engaging local youth and families, from the fish delivery, feeding the baby salmon, to releasing them, GSSA is creating hands-on education opportunities while bringing access to fishing and nature for under-resourced communities.
With project support from East Bay Municipal Utility District, The City of Richmond, CDFW and Mokelumne Fish Hatchery, 200,000 fall-run Chinook smolts will be held in a protected net pen for one week, fed, and acclimated. This will encourage them to return as adults offering fishing opportunities from shore, skiffs, and kayaks in the future.
Last week, with help from our friends at Coastside Fishing Club, we celebrated the first milestone, vaccinating the baby salmon against Vibrio, a harmful bacterium that the fish can get from net pen acclimation. The vaccine safely boosts the salmon’s immune system to improve their survival in the ocean, posing no risk to the salmon or humans and helping ensure healthier fish and higher survival.
Building on over a decade of proven success with net pens, this will be a small version pen replacing the 200,000 smolts directly released from the trucks in prior years out of Richmond.
Next up: net pen set-up and fish delivery to Richmond. Stay tuned, we’re just getting started!