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Return of the Salmon Festival

Coleman National Fish Hatchery feeding ponds are always a popular draw for visitors during the 'Return of the Salmon Festival.' The ponds hold various sized immature salmon that are protected from natural predators until they are large enough to survive most of the dangers of Battle Creek and the Sacramento River. As they mature, they are released into the creek to begin their journey to the Pacific Ocean, where they will swim, feed and grow for three to seven years before returning to the hatchery where the milt and roe are harvested for another generation.

Photo by George L. Winship, Editor

Coleman National Fish Hatchery feeding ponds are always a popular draw for visitors during the "Return of the Salmon Festival." The ponds hold various sized immature salmon that are protected from natural predators until they are large enough to survive most of the dangers of Battle Creek and the Sacramento River. As they mature, they are released into the creek to begin their journey to the Pacific Ocean, where they will swim, feed and grow for three to seven years before returning to the hatchery where the milt and roe are harvested for another generation.

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  • During the Return of the Salmon Festival, booths from various wildlife and natural resource agencies, both state and federal, line walkways near the Coleman National Fish Hatchery's rearing ponds. In the background are the actual hatchery buildings where nearly 12 million salmon are incubated until the young smolt hatch. They are moved from small to ever larger holding tanks inside the buildings until they reach a size where they can reasonably survive outdoor temperatures in the rearing tanks.
  • Coleman National Fish Hatchery feeding ponds are always a popular draw for visitors during the 'Return of the Salmon Festival.' The ponds hold various sized immature salmon that are protected from natural predators until they are large enough to survive most of the dangers of Battle Creek and the Sacramento River. As they mature, they are released into the creek to begin their journey to the Pacific Ocean, where they will swim, feed and grow for three to seven years before returning to the hatchery where the milt and roe are harvested for another generation.
  • A Shasta Wildlife Rescue volunteer holds a kestral, the smallest day-feeding raptor common to much of North America. Some kestrals migrate long distances each year, ranging from the Alaskan tundra to South America, and back.
  • Life Cycle Croquet teaches youngsters as well as parents about the life cycle of salmon -- from the dangers young smolt face from other fish, wildlife and irrigation pumps as they swim downstream to the Pacific Ocean -- to the open ocean dangers and then the many obstacles the fish face as mature adults ready to spawn and their long trip upstream to the native water in which they hatched.
  • A Coleman National Fish Hatchery worker holds a typical adult salmon up for viewers. The largest salmon on the cart weighed 85 pounds, about as much as some of the young children who were touring the hatchery with their parents during the 19th annual Return of the Salmon Festival held Oct. 17.

Typical scenes from the 19th annual Return of the Salmon Festival, held Saturday, Oct. 17, at the Coleman National Fish Hatchery on Battle Creek, east of Anderson and Cottonwood.

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