Click the link to read the article and for the photos on The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel website (Nathan Deal). Here’s an excerpt:
May 4, 2024
The Palisade High School Endangered Fish Hatchery program hosted its fourth annual razorback sucker release Friday at Riverbend Park. Students in the program, partnering with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, released 370 razorback suckers into the Colorado River — a single-year record for the program — to surpass 1,000 fish released in the past four years. Many of the fish released, as always, received smooches before being released into the river, as is PHS Endangered Fish Hatchery tradition.
“Our fish release days are always kind of bittersweet. We definitely grow attached to our fish like our pets, so we’re excited to release them, but at the same time, we’re going to miss seeing them every day,” said Palisade Fish Hatchery Teacher Patrick Steele. “We know this is what we’ve been working all year for. The whole purpose of this is to help to recover this population of endangered razorback suckers. When you get to this point, it’s exciting.”