On Monday, May 11th at 10:30 a.m. at the Blossom Gulch Elementary School (located at 333 S. 10th St., Coos Bay), the City of Coos Bay together with associates from CH2M HIll/OMI, and the Oregon Dept. of Fish and Wildlife will team up to release approximately 250,000 juvenile Chinook salmon into Blossom Gulch. This is an annual event which began in 1998. The program allows the juvenile salmon to live in Blossom Creek where CH2M Hill/OMI staff members feed them several times a day for a few months until they are ready to be released from the creek and eventually make their way out to the bay and the Pacific Ocean. They will wander the Pacific until they return to spawn in 3 – 4 years averaging 20-40 pounds. This annual event has greatly enhanced the local recreational fishing opportunities and provides an excellent outreach to the local school children. There will be over 100 Blossom Gulch elementary school children on hand to witness the release and cheer them on. To date several million chinook salmon have been released and countless have returned to enhance the bay and local estuary.
