Posted Sunday, April 13, 2025
By Joe Scordino, Stream Team Project Leader
A large crowd gathered at Yost Park to help release several salmon at a time. They used clear cups so everyone could see the baby salmon. (Photo courtesy Joe Scordino)
Volunteers of all ages turned out Saturday for an annual event in Yost Park to help Sound Salmon Solutions (which operates the salmon hatchery) and the Edmonds Stream Team re-populate Shell Creek with baby coho salmon from the Willow Creek Salmon Hatchery in Edmonds.
Volunteers placed about 4,000 baby coho salmon in upper Shell Creek in Yost Park and near Holy Rosary Church, where they will live and grow until next spring when they leave the creek to begin their adult life at sea.
The Shell Creek release is part of the Edmonds Stream Team salmon program to enhance salmon populations in local streams from Lunds Gulch Creek in Meadowdale Beach Park to the north and Boeing Creek to the south.
These baby salmon will imprint to Shell Creek, and survivors will return after 2 years in the ocean as adults that spawn in Shell Creek. (See the March 20 Edmonds Beacon article for more information and details about the first salmon release of this year that involved baby chum salmon into lower Shell Creek: tinyurl.com/mwfnz9du).
Although local streams have high-quality, year-round natural spring water needed for salmon survival, they also have polluted stormwater from roadways draining into streams during rain events that take a toll on salmon survival.
Buildings, pavement/concrete areas, and loss of trees (which absorb rainwater) cause excess stormwater to gush into creeks during rainstorms, causing scouring and erosion, with sediment and silt impacting the clean gravel-spawning areas and suffocating any salmon eggs in the gravel in winter months.
Thus, the need for this salmon enhancement project (and appreciation of public support) to re-populate and enhance the local salmon populations impacted by excess stormwater.
The next public event to release coho salmon from the Hatchery will be at Lunds Gulch Creek in Meadowdale Beach Park May 18.