The Sammamish Kokanee Work Group, area elementary students and King County Executive Dow Constantine will release kokanee salmon fry into Lake Sammamish Friday to mark the end of Earth Week.

The release will take place at noon in Lake Sammamish State Park at Laughing Jacobs Creek, across the street from the boat launch.

This is the sixth year of release under an Issaquah State Salmon Hatchery program to save the Lake Sammamish kokanee from extinction. The Kokanee Work Group extracted salmon from Ebright Creek in December. Since then, their spawn — or “fry” — have been nurtured in the Hatchery until growing to a size at which they can survive in the wild.

A “Kokanee Kam” was launched April 1 so that the progress of the fry could be viewed online.

Unlike many salmon, the region’s kokanee spend their entire lives in the Lake Sammamish watershed. Over several decades, the health of the population has declined to the point of near extinction — catching and keeping kokanee on Lake Sammamish is now prohibited.

The Hatchery program was launched in 2007 to improve kokanee populations to the point that a kokanee fishery can eventually operate on the lake.