Edmonds Rotary, Perrinville neighbors help repopulate streams with salmon

by Joe Scordino
April 7th, 2025

Volunteers used a “bucket brigade” to get coho babies down to Perrinville Creek. (Photos courtesy Joe Scordino)
Volunteers used a “bucket brigade” to get coho babies down to Perrinville Creek. (Photos courtesy Joe Scordino)
Edmonds Rotary Club watching baby salmon get accoustomed to the restored Shellabarger Creek.
Edmonds Rotary Club watching baby salmon get accoustomed to the restored Shellabarger Creek.

The Edmonds Rotary Club and the Perrinville neighborhood rallied over the weekend to help repopulate local streams with “baby” coho salmon from the Willow Creek Salmon Hatchery in Edmonds.

During a tour of the Edmonds Marsh Volunteer Restoration Project, Edmonds Rotary Club members helped the Edmonds Stream Team place 1,000 coho salmon babies (called salmon fry) in the newly opened Shellabarger Creek along Highway 104. The coho fry dispersed quickly upon release from aerated buckets and the challenge for Rotarians was to try to spot the individual salmon that they released.  Since these coho fry all look the same and ‘blend in’ with the creek bottom — or quickly hide under streamside vegetation — it made for a fun game to re-sight the fish while observing the work done by dedicated community volunteers in restoring the creek.

Megan Moran of Sound Salmon Solutions nets individual salmon for Mark Mercado from Meadowdale High School.
Megan Moran of Sound Salmon Solutions nets individual salmon for Mark Mercado from Meadowdale High School.

In upper Perrinville Creek (near the Perrinville Post Office), neighborhood families joined Sound Salmon Solutions (the organization that operates the Salmon Hatchery) and their volunteers to place 4,000 coho salmon ‘babies’ in the creek. Diana and Rene Van Loveren hosted what’s become an annual neighborhood event in their back yard.

The next salmon release event, which the public is welcome to observe, will be at Yost Park at 10 a.m. Saturday, April 12.  The baby salmon will arrive in aerated buckets at the Main Street entrance to Yost Park (at the intersection of Olympic Avenue and Main Street).

Perrinville neighborhood kids helped release the coho salmon babies.
Perrinville neighborhood kids helped release the coho salmon babies.

These baby salmon will spend the first year of their life feeding on insect larvae and other aquatic organisms in these cool, well-oxygenated streams derived from year-round natural springs in Edmonds. Unfortunately, Edmonds streams also have polluted stormwater draining into them during rain events. That takes their toll on salmon survival, thus necessitating these salmon enhancement efforts with hatchery fry. In the case of Perrinville Creek, the stormwater flows during heavy rain events also erode the streambanks and cause severe problems with sediment deposition and flooding in lower Perrinville Creek.

After one year in the creeks and growth to about 4 to 6 inches, the coho salmon that survive will go out to sea for two years to grow to about 2 feet long and then return to the creeks where they started as babies to spawn the next generation.

Joe Scordino is the Edmonds Stream Team Project Leader.