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	Atlantic Salmon Restoration Update Mike Young WRWA is continuing its involvement with the Atlantic Salmon Restoration Program. This spring we've provided two aquarium systems for use in the Atlantic Salmon Egg-Rearing Program (ASERP), a project of the U.S. Fisheries and Wildlife Service and the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, with organizational assistance from Trout Unlimited. One tank is being supervised by the students of Team 62 at the Westfield South Middle School, under the direction of their teacher Maureen Napoles. Salmon eggs were delivered to the school in late February and have now hatched out. The students will begin feeding the fry by mid-April and are planning to stock them out in the Little River behind the school during the first few days of May. The students are also conducting an environmental survey of the release site, checking on water flow, water temperature, stream sediment characteristics, and status of the floodplain areas along the stream. The second tank is housed in the Elementary Science Education classroom at Westfield State, under the supervision of Linda Pirek and Frank Giuliano. Those fry will be released at 10 a.m. on Saturday morning April 27 at the Whitney Playground near downtown Westfield. The event will be open to the public and everyone will have a chance to release a few fry into the river. We're planning to have at least one more school in the Westfield Watershed involved in the program next year, and are looking for volunteers interested in helping out with the program. If you're interested, contact Mike Young (572-5741, or via email to "myoung@wisdom.wsc.ma.edu"). As we have for many years now, WRWA is also assisting the state with the stocking of salmon fry in the Westfield Watershed. Nearly a million fry will be stocked between mid-April and early May. WRWA is hoping to provide a good number of volunteers on Saturday April 20 (meet at Tekoa Country Club on Rt. 20 about 3 miles west of downtown Westfield at 8:30 a.m.) and April 27 (meet at the Gateway Regional High School in Huntington at 8:30 a.m.). Be sure to confirm the schedule the day/evening before by calling Caleb Slater's voice mail at 508-792-7270 (extension 133). Bring boots or waders if you have them (the state has provided some waders in the past if you don't) and a lunch. Expect to carry a bucket of fry along a half-mile stretch of stream, distributing the fry in handfuls in sections that appear to provide the right habitat. It's a great experience and a good way to find some interesting stream segments that you might never have visited otherwise. For more information, check out the Events page of the new WRWA website.