Black Butte School students raise fish fry

Black Butte School students have taken their experiment in hatching fish eggs to the experts at Wizard Falls Fish Hatchery.

Fry are newly hatched fish eggs, stage just after sac fry. Before sac fry they are called alvin, which comes after the egg.

Eggs are just what the Black Butte School students started with when their parents suggested they learn how to hatch fish eggs in an incubator.

The nice thing about fry is, they don't grow bigger than the environment you put them in (if only Scarsdale had thought of that diet plan). Which is why, eventually, they get to move into a bigger pond where they can get still bigger. In the big pond they grow into something beautiful, photogenic and edible - trout or salmon.

Fry get moved from tank to larger tank until they are finally released into a lake.

Visit the Wizard Falls Fish Hatchery and you can see the giant pump that sucks the fish out of the tank into the back of a truck from where they are either driven or air lifted to one of Oregon's many beautiful lakes.

When a helicopter is used for stooking, the fry are flown in from about three feet above the water; whoosh, down they go. Angler's heaven.

Meanwhile, back at the hatchery, the Black Butte School students released their 200 fry, contained in about 10 cartons, into the appropriate tanks - almost.

Occasionally, children just don't follow directions. Some of the fry were released into the wrong tank. That tank contained fish that were much bigger than the student's young fry and the bigger fish ate small fry for dessert. The small fry who were released into the right tank were smart enough to hide from the bigger fry.

And the children got to see, first hand, exactly how it all happens out in nature.