By Madie Murray
Community Journalist
A healthy return of King Salmon to the Glenwood Springs Salmon Hatchery lower pond for the third year in a row made it possible for a total of 80 salmon to be delivered to the public school cafeteria and the Food Bank this past two weeks.
After all salmon in the return pond are logged in and recorded, they’re hoisted from the pool and harvested. Their offspring will be raised at the hatchery until they are big enough to release into the Sound and return again to Glenwood Springs several years later.
Rollie Sauer, together with Mike O’Connell, Manager of the Glenwood Springs Hatchery, took care of acquiring the proper approvals with the state Fish and Wildlife Dept for the salmon to be delivered; and volunteers Rick Doty, along with Don Myers and Jay Longfellow expertly filleted them on the spot prior to delivery to the school and food bank.
“This is amazing to be able to prepare and serve fresh salmon in our school lunches,” says Zach Holley, cafeteria chef. He will be using it in quiches, pastas, salads and even expects to smoke some.
Jeannie Doty of the Orcas Island Food Bank says, “You can’t believe how our clients’ faces light up when they are given fresh salmon to fix for dinner. It’s truly something very special and rare for a food bank to be able to offer.”
With significant cuts in state funding to the hatchery this year, we are truly grateful for this very generous and thoughtful contribution to our community, and urge the support of their fundraisers and financial well-being in any way possible to maintain this Island treasure. An event coming up will be a tour of the pond and hatchery followed by a picnic lunch in the historic Youngren barn on October 20. To learn more about this event, click here.
Glenwood Springs was started by Jim and Kathy Youngren in 1978 and was later formed into Long Live the Kings, (www.lltk.org) a non-profit organization devoted to restoring wild salmon and steelhead to the waters of the Pacific Northwest. More on Glenwood Springs may be viewed by clicking here.
There are many volunteers who make the Hatchery program successful and when the salmon are returning, two of them are there just about everyday. They are Marlyn Myers, who records in a database every returning fish and Dave Hall, who nets, measures and determines the gender of the salmon. Thank you to all the volunteers.