MILL CREEK — Fortunately for an Everett School District environmental education program, more than 18,000 salmon fry that were released or killed by vandals have been replaced by the state at no charge.
What’s harder to fix is the emotional impact of the crime.
“The fish are like my children because I raise them from eggs,” said Shelly Erickson, caretaker at the Lively Environmental Center, where the fish are kept. “It was horrific; it was awful.”
Sometime late Monday or early Tuesday, someone entered the 22-acre property and opened screen doors over the concrete salmon tank, Erickson said.
Apparently using a small, hand-held net that was left behind, the vandal or vandals scooped out approximately 13,000 coho salmon fry and dumped them in Nickel Creek alongside the tank. It’s believed they survived, but they were much smaller than fish that are normally released.
The vandals took out another 1,000 fish, dropped them on the wooden deck beside the tank and apparently stomped them to death.
An estimated 5,000 more were apparently taken away with a bucket and dumped in a pile on a path. Their food, kept in a bucket beside the tank, was carried in another bucket and dropped on top of them. Both buckets were left behind. About 2,000 fish were left in the tank.
“It was really upsetting to be out there that morning” on Tuesday, said Debbie Hickman, a secretary for the school district’s Science Resource Center. “Who would just blatantly let them die like that? It’s just terrible.”
Mill Creek police are investigating.
The Lively Environmental Center is named for John W. Lively, who donated the property on Seattle Hill Road in Mill Creek to the school district in 1980. Since then, every year, elementary-age kids from the Everett School District have made field trips to the site, where they not only see the fish but walk along trails, plant gardens and visit a museum there.
Shortly before the end of the school year, kids release 20,000 fingerlings into Nickel Creek, a tributary of North Creek. Now, the tiny fish are only about as long as the last joint on a person’s finger. When they’re released, they’re about 2 inches long, Erickson said.
Each child gets a container of fish to release into the creek. Many of the kids give their fish names.
“I have adults who come back here with their own children and say, ‘I did this when I was a child,’” Erickson said.
Erickson and her family live on the property but heard nothing Monday night, she said.
Since the crime, new locks have been installed on the screen doors and the gate is now locked at night, Erickson said.
After the incident, Erickson made two trips to the Issaquah Fish Hatchery, operated by the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, and picked up 20,000 more coho salmon fry.
The hatchery supplies the program with 20,000 fish for free every year and had fish to spare, said John Kugen, a fish hatchery specialist stationed at the site.
While the program at the Lively Environmental Center can proceed, people at the school district are still shaking their heads about the incident.
“It’s a disturbing thing that someone would do to another living creature,” district spokeswoman Mary Waggoner said.
Bill Sheets: 425-339-3439, sheets@heraldnet.com.
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