North Sound tribal members joined groups of Bellingham fourth graders this spring as they visited a local beach to study salmon in the wild through the Whatcom Marine Resources Committee’s Beach Seines with Schools program.
Before students practiced identifying juvenile salmon by species during a program field trip in May, Jim and Sandra Bura shared stories about the natural and cultural histories of the fish.
“Remember when you see the fish here, they came from the Nooksack River,” said Sandra Bura, of Lummi Nation, at Boulevard Park on Bellingham Bay. “And someday they’ll come back, a long way, to the river again.”
Her husband Jim Bura, Nooksack Indian Tribe member and fisheries harvest manager, shared that while small salmon are migrating outward into Bellingham Bay in the spring, some large salmon are migrating back inward, through the bay to the river.
“We’ve had fishermen these past few weeks harvesting these fish for our community,” he said. “We catch them, smoke them, can them. These fish, our people have survived on forever.”
Sandra Bura reminded students of the five species of salmon. She described how the color of their bodies, shapes of their tails and patterns like dark spots on their sides can help distinguish one type of salmon from the other.
Lummi stock assessment staff then used a seine net to gather a sampling of juvenile salmon and other marine life from along the beach. Students observed coho and chum salmon, as well as an abundance of shiner perch, a few shore crabs and a sculpin.
The students practiced taking field notes, including the species and size of each fish and the occasional drawing of their observations.
Beach Seines with Schools is a program of the Whatcom Marine Resources Committee in partnership with the Lummi and Nooksack tribes, Northwest Straits Foundation and Salish Sea School. A series of field trips takes place in April and May with participating schools and tribal guest speakers from throughout Whatcom County.
Above: Fourth graders gather around while a juvenile salmon is placed in an observation aquarium so they can measure the fish, identify the species and draw their observations during a Beach Seines with Schools field trip. Photos and story by Kimberly Cauvel
