Goodbye Chums, and annual fish release event hosted by the Kanaka Education and Environmental Partnership (KEEPS), is back this year.
The event is scheduled for April 24 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., at the Kanaka Creek Watershed Stewardship Centre, and the Bell-Irving Hatchery. It is located at 11450 256th St.
A highlight of the event is always equipping children to toddle down to Kanaka Creek with a water pail full of hatchery chum fry, so they can release them into the wild, and say “goodbye.”
There have been family activities, including story time, crafts, educational displays and more.
The event has seen more than 500 people attending in pre-pandemic years, and they sent 15,000 fry down the creek. The hatchery reported collecting 212,000 chum eggs in 2021, which will be used to re-stock waterways.
Goodbye Chums has been interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, but school classes reared salmonids in classroom aquariums, to keep the education aspects of the event alive.
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