Darting around a 55-gallon aquarium in an elementary school classroom in Silver City are 31 healthy juvenile Gila trout, awaiting their release into the waters of southwestern New Mexico sometime this fall.
It’s the first time this variety of fish — once and endangered species — have been raised through Trout Unlimited’s “Trout In the Classroom” program to help students learn about the importance of clean, cold fisheries and protecting the environment. It’s also hoped it will stimulate kids’ interest in fishing.
Fifth and Sixth grade teacher Keith Rogers has been spearheading the program in Silver City, with the assistance of Trout Unlimited staffer Eric Head, some U.S. Forest Service volunteers and to some small degree, myself.
The fertilized Gila trout eggs from a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service hatchery in northern New Mexico were delivered last spring and hatched soon thereafter in Rogers’ classroom. Unlike some other programs I’ve been involved with, this program has been a great success so far. The fish have been thriving and will be released into Lake Roberts or a tributary to the Gila River in early October. Even though school was out for the summer, Rogers and other volunteers kept a regular watch over the trout this summer, making sure they were fed, water chemistry was correct and the tank was cleaned regularly.
Attached is a video taken by Rogers of the fish swimming around the tank a week or two ago during feeding time:
The fish have grown to about two inches in size, with the largest almost three inches. They are also getting more colorful, showing off their basic golden hue with tiny dark spots on their body and white trim on some of their fins.
With the disappointments we had at Ruidoso during the last two years, this is good news. The first batch of fish raised in a Trout in the Classroom program at White Mountain Elementary were released days before the first of many floods ravaged the town and the Rio Ruidoso. The second group acquired last fall all perished for some still unknown reason. Fortunately, the Mescalero Apache Fish Hatchery saved the day by providing three juvenile adult trout for the students to observe in the classroom during the spring 2025 semester and were released at the Inn of the Mountain Gods lake.
But a sad note to that story was the widespread damage and destruction of the Mescalero hatchery this summer when torrential rains flooded that facility. The hatchery lost about 50,000 fish of various sizes — almost 80 percent of the population. It will take at least a year before the hatchery, which provides trout to various tribal waters throughout the Southwest, will be back to full operation.
I’ll keep everyone posted as we get closer to the time the Silver City Gila trout will be released into the wild.
aero-cordero.com 