Latest from hatchery...
18 May 2008
Around 25,000 salmon fry have been released into the streams which form the headwaters of the Moyola.
Mervyn Finlay, Eugene McCormick and Michael McGlade took the salmon fry, [which have now absorbed their yolk sacks and are ready to feed]from the hatchery on Sunday morning [May 18] in buckets of water infused with oxygen.
The fry were relased in four locations, 1: The Blackwater tributary on the Lough Fea Rd, 2: Tullybrick Road stream, 3: Upper Moyola at Cavanreagh, Sixtowns, 4: Glengomna River, Bancran. About 5,000 fry were released into each of these locations.
Hatchery volunteers have stocked fry into these small streams in the headwaters where the small juvenile salmon will have a greater chance of survival, free from predatory trout.
In the coming weeks and months the fry will spread out and make their way downstream in search of greater feeding as they develop. Kick samples have revealed that these streams are healthy with stonefly, and other aquatic life in abundance.
There is still a large number of fry [approx 60,000] in the hatchery which will be stocked into the river at various stages during the summer and ealry autumn months.
