Help Us Build Our New Aquarium Exhibit!
A new, state of the art aquarium is planned for the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery. Visitors will see salmon developing from eggs to fingerlings, just as they do in Issaquah Creek. Friends of the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery (FISH) is excited to announce a capital campaign to raise $20,000 for this project. The exhibit is scheduled to be open in time for the fall 2013 salmon season, to delight and inspire the thousands of visitors who come to the hatchery each year.
Each year over 10,000 school children tour the hatchery on classroom field trips. FISH has secured the services of a reputable aquarium design firm, Aquarium Concepts, to create and install a new exhibit that will vastly improve the educational quality of the aquarium and give visitors a much more realistic demonstration of how salmon grow and mature.
Larry Kangas, the artist who painted the depiction of salmon predators on the hatchery water tank, has been engaged to create a realistic backdrop to the tanks which will include depictions of native vegetation, logs and lighting to replicate the natural daylight cast as found in Issaquah Creek. Using chillers and a modern filtering system, the water in the tanks will be maintained at optimum conditions for young developing salmon.
We are indebted to Jordan Valente Construction for donating their services to reinforce the shelf on which the aquarium tanks will rest and Illuminate Contracting, LLC for donating their services to reroute and install the needed wiring.
We are asking for your help so we can complete this new exhibit. Our Board of Directors has committed $5,000 in seed money to get us started and we are grateful to the Kiwanis Club of Issaquah for being the first to step forward with a pledge of $2,000. We are asking other organizations and businesses in our community to help with this effort as well. But it will take all of us to make this vision a reality.
The return of salmon is Issaquah Creek is an annual miracle. Our hatchery is here to keep the salmon coming home. You can support this annual miracle by helping us build our new aquarium so future generations will preserve and protect out salmon and the waters they live in.