Sound Salmon Solutions – Edmonds Environmental Council

Go, fry, go! Baby coho salmon released into local streams

May 17, 2026

Several thousand baby coho salmon from the Willow Creek Salmon Hatchery in Edmonds were released into local streams on Saturday.

*Imogen and Adelia ready to release baby salmon into Willo Creek. (Photo by Emily Benson)*

This hatchery has raised salmon since the mid-1980s, and in recent years, under management by Sound Salmon Solutions, has focused on re-introducing and bolstering coho salmon populations in Edmonds’ streams, such as Shell Creek, Perrinville Creek, Willow Creek, Shellabarger Creek, Lunds Gulch Creek and Northstream Creek.

*Adelia Benson with her cup of baby salmon.*

Releases of baby coho salmon (called ‘salmon fry’) into local streams now involve volunteers of all ages to promote public engagement in enhancement of the quality stream habitat that these fish need to survive.

Saturday was no different with adults, students, and young families helping release the salmon fry into Shell Creek in Yost Park and into Willow Creek next to the Hatchery.

*Hatchery Manage Megan Moran scoops salmon into cups.*

*Fry are off and running, er, swimming.*

Stream Team helps bring salmon back to Edmonds

March 25, 2026
By Joe Scordino

PRESS RELEASE Bringing Salmon Back to Edmonds Download

Link to My Edmonds News article
Link to Edmonds Beacon article

It’s now that time of year when the Edmonds Stream Team and Sound Salmon Solutions are working with community volunteers to place ‘baby’ coho salmon from the Willow Creek Salmon Hatchery in Edmonds into local creeks. The 2- to 3-month-old ‘baby’ coho (called salmon ‘fry’) will bolster local populations whose habitat has been affected by development and stormwater.

At Perrinville Creek, neighborhood families, along with students from Meadowdale High School, helped release 4,000 coho salmon fry into the upper creek (near the Perrinville Post Office).

At Shellabarger Creek along the Hwy 104 Marsh Restoration Project, members of the Edmonds Rotary Club and restoration volunteers captured 1,000 coho salmon fry from the Hatchery pond and released them into the restored, re-opened creek (previously enmeshed with invasive bittersweet nightshade).

Next Sunday, March 29, 5,000 coho fry will be released into Lunds Gulch Creek in Meadowdale Beach Park around 10:00am near the wood bridge (visitors are welcome to watch). On May 16, Sound Salmon Solutions will release 3,500 coho into Shell Creek in Yost Park (see SSS website).

The two-inch coho salmon fry will spend their first year of life in freshwater streams and then go out to sea where they’ll grow into 2-foot+ adult salmon. Then in fall of 2028, the survivors will return to freshwater streams as spawning adult salmon to create future salmon generations.
The adult spawners will return to the creeks where they were born, or in the case of these fry to the creeks that they lived in (and imprinted to) prior to going out to sea. Unfortunately, for the Perrinville Creek salmon, they won’t be able to return unless the blockage the City placed in 2021 is removed (for detail on the blockage see 7/15/25 My Edmonds News article on the Edmonds Environmental Council’s complaint about the City’s illegal diversion structures).

The community salmon enhancement program is authorized under Cooperative Agreements between the Washington Dept. of Fish and Wildlife, the Edmonds Stream Team, and Sound Salmon Solutions.

Joe Scordino, Project Leader
Edmonds Stream Team
Edmonds.Envir.Council@gmail.com

The Edmonds Stream Team is a community all-volunteer Citizen Science project to monitor and improve the condition of Edmonds creeks and nearshore wetlands to enhance salmon and wildlife populations (and benefit people who appreciate preservation of our natural resources)

U.S. Rep. Larsen briefed on federal funding cuts threatening Sound Salmon Solutions operations

June 30, 2025

Link to My Edmonds News article

Mary Brueggerman, Sound Salmon Solutions executive director, briefs U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen Monday on the impacts of federal budget cuts. (Photos by Larry Vogel)

U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen (D-2nd District) visited Edmonds’ Willow Creek Hatchery Monday afternoon for a staff briefing on federal funding cuts that threaten hatchery operations and education programs.