WEYBURN – The FINS program, or Fish in School, is back for a third year in the kindergarten class at St. Michael School, as the trout fish eggs arrived on Monday from the fish hatchery.
The teacher, Candice Porter Kopec, said her students were excited at the prospect of the fish eggs arriving for the class’s fish tank.
She said that the kids love it, and the program is a positive influence on them as they take turns and help to take care of the eggs through the late winter-spring months.
Kopec showed the students the small container with the eggs in them, and the children were astounded they were so small. She also had them feel how warm the tank was, and they were able to come up and see their new home once she put them into a see-through container in the tank where they will stay until they hatch in about a month’s time.
The class will feed and raise the eggs into fingerlings, and they will be released into a pond at Mainprize Regional Park in early June.
This is part of a province-wide program of the Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation, and is provided locally by the Weyburn Wildlife Federation, which bought the tank to be used in the class, said president Larry Olfert.
He and wife Judy delivered the batch of 100 eggs, after they were delivered from the fish hatchery at Fort Qu’Appelle.
Since the initial outlay for two fish tanks, the Weyburn Wildlife Federation has an annual cost of about $350-400 for the food charcoal filters for the filtration system.
The second tank had been at the Weyburn Comp the last two years, but it won’t be used this year, and the goal is to hopefully start the program at another school like Assiniboia Park next year.
