Casa Students Will Still Get to Participate in Release

Casa Grande High students, who suffered a setback earlier this month after 60,000 salmon they were raising were released by a vandal, will still get to participate in a release after the California Department of Fish and Game donated 1,000 steelhead trout from a hatchery.

On Oct. 3 and 7, vandals cut the nets in the wood holding pens containing the fish at the Romberg Tiburon Center for Environmental Studies. The salmon were to be released at the institute's Discovery Day on Oct. 30, which will still be held, albeit with trout.

Meanwhile, the Tiburon Salmon Institute on Wednesday announced that it has created a reward for information leading to the arrest of the vandals. Supporters of both the radical Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have been critical of the conditions at the hatchery.

In a post on his website, Animal Liberation Front advocate Peter Young wrote that “Casa Grande High School students who were involved with this program have no right to imprison 40,000 fish in a big net for a single day. Anyone who keeps any animal in a cage anywhere should be reminded: ‘the ALF is watching'.”

The FBI is currently investigating the vandalism.

Every year students who are part of the United Anglers of Casa Grande program raise salmon in hatcheries while learning about creek restoration, the environment and helping replenish fish populations. So when the salmon were released, students felt a major blow, having raised the fish.

On Oct. 27, there will be a screening of "The River Why," a movie about the self-discovery of 20-year-old man who leaves his family to live in a secluded cabin on the banks of a wild river and do nothing but fish. It will screen at the Lark Theater in Larkspur, with all proceeds going to the reward fund

Bay City News contributed to this report.