April 5, 2024

Report from Julie McDonald at the Neal Taylor Nature Center

So sorry you are getting this late. This was a great season with lots of trout surviving and the trout released looked very healthy.  From reports of the release…there was a bit of a feeding frenzy. 

The pond at Rancho Simi Park has a very active bird population! 

OVERVIEW:
Classroom Aquarium Education Program | LINK
Known regionally as Trout in the Classroom, Salmonids in the Classroom, and Steelhead in the Classroom

Through a classroom experience of hatching fish eggs and coordinated activities, students experience first-hand the value of aquatic environments, the balance that must be met to maintain and preserve California's fisheries and aquatic habitats, and how their personal actions affect these valuable resources.

Instructors and their students set up an aquarium in the classroom, receive fish eggs under a special CDFW permit, and observe the fish as they hatch and develop. The experience may culminate in a field trip to a local stream or river where the fish are released. This is a hands-on, interdisciplinary project for grades K-12.

The Classroom Aquarium Education Project is offered statewide in partnership with regionally-based community organizations. While the program has several names around the state, the essential learning elements and student experiences are similar. The prerequisite training workshops are held at locations throughout the state. Completion of a training workshop is required to receive eggs. Teacher training workshops are offered at least once a year in each region.

April 2024 | Terry Fernandez, SBFF TIC leader

Winter session has been successfully completed by our two sites.  Washington School released only one fry following a sudden die-off of the little guys in the last week before release. 

We have not been able to determine the root cause and CDFW has counseled us to move forward and be vigilant of water temperatures and quality.  NTNC at Cachuma is working with CDFW as in the past to keep some trout in their larger tank for continued visitor education. 

Regarding the changes from CDFW this session and our questions about them, our liaison Abram Tucker has responded:   “Thank you for the update, in regard to Lake Los Carneros it was consulted on with one of our reservoir biologists and they determined that it was not to be put on the list for stocking of diploid trout. I can talk to them before next session to get their reasoning, however I am hoping it shouldn’t be a problem next time as I am going to request from our hatcheries that we get triploid eggs from now on. As I mentioned before, the change to diploid was done by the hatcheries and I was not informed of it until they were getting the eggs ready to send to me. Now that I am aware that the hatcheries are doing this, I can work around it better to avoid such issues in the future.” 

So we have high hopes for next Fall session. 

Terry Fernandez
Santa Barbara Fly Fishers

January 16, 2024

All went well with Friday’s Winter TIC egg distribution.  Tom Simmons and Carl Cadenasso did a great job in the entire process;  getting the eggs, permits and trout food from the Fillmore Hatchery and delivering  ~100 eggs each to Washington Elementary and the Neal Taylor Nature Center at Cachuma.  Aquariums looked good and water temps were also good.  

 Currently awaiting a reply from DF&W on some info needed for teachers….egg fertilization date and associated water temps, trout strain info.    This will help teachers in their trout-specific lesson plans. 

 We don’t have any info yet on whether there will be a Spring TIC session.  This will be forthcoming from DF&W. 

 Let me know of any questions you may have. 

Terry Fernandez
Santa Barbara Flyfishers

January 7, 2024

The Winter TIC session, originally planned for end of Ja nuary, has been moved up to next week.  There have been several changes from CDFW and from some schools, but we are moving forward to deliver eggs next week. 

Summary of changes

• CDFW is unable to provide us with triploid (sterile) eggs for this session; they will be giving us diploid (normal) eggs.  TIC has been operating with triploid eggs for some years, so this is a big change.  It has resulted in a revision of the allowable TIC fry release waters:  we no longer have Lake Los Carneros, Reyes Creek or Lake Casitas available to us for releases.  The closest water that is allowed is Rancho Simi Park Lake in Simi Valley, north of Thousand Oaks.  This has resulted in some schools dropping the TIC Winter session due to the cost and logistics of the distance and time needed for such a release.  I have been told by CDFW that this use of diploid eggs is a one-off and is not expected to be necessary in the future. 

• Two schools are in the midst of significant infrastructure improvements, resulting in our teachers having to relocate their classrooms.  This disruption is too much for the teachers to add TIC to the curriculum for the Winter session. 

• CDFW has changed the egg delivery date for the Fillmore Hatchery to this week, but cannot specify a particular day.  First plan was delivery on Thursday, Jan 11, but then cautioned that if a forecasted storm delayed the truck from the north egg source, then they would not get the eggs to Fillmore until Friday, Jan 12….they would then keep the eggs over the weekend and provide them to us on Monday, Jan 15. 

• At this time, we do not know whether CDFW will offer a Spring TIC session. 

Current Winter session plan

 We have two sites ready to go for the Winter session, Washington Elementary and Neal Taylor Nature Center at Cachuma Lake.  We have communicated with the responsible people at these sites and will deliver eggs to them on either Jan 12 or Jan 15. 

 We’ll follow up with a status report after the egg deliveries.

 Let me know of any questions you may have.
 Terry