Whispered farewells, best wishes and giggles sent silvery fry on their way down Laughing Jacobs Creek near Lake Sammamish Park April 24.

About 50 middle and elementary students, as well as community members and partners working to save the Lake Sammamish kokanee salmon, participated in the sixth annual Kokanee Release, easing dozens of inch-long fry back into their natural habitat.

The release is part of an Issaquah Salmon Hatchery program that aims to increase and stabilize a healthy population of the rare, freshwater fish.

“The hatchery program bought us time — time to restore the habitat; time to make these natural systems work on their own,” King County Executive Dow Constantine said at the event. “The last fry are scheduled to be released in 2021.”

The hatchery program, implemented by the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife and King County, is primarily funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Nearly 30 fourth and fifth graders from Campbell Hill Elementary School, 20 Elizabeth Blackwell Elementary students and four students from Pine Lake Middle School helped release kokanee. Many students named their new friend before freeing it in the creek.

Students also participated in several other hands-on educational activities, covering topics like water quality and preservation.

Suzannah Cox, the education director at Friends of the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery, was on site watching Blackwell and Pine Lake students participate in the kokanee life cycle obstacle course, one of the activities led by FISH.

She said it’s all about educating the youth.

“We hope their experience with animals will stick with them their whole life,” she said.

Within the course, some students impersonated the young kokanee, jumping rope to move from the “creek” to “Lake Sammamish,” a more open space blocked off by cones. In the lake, other students with hand puppets represented the kokanee predators, which the fish dodge for several years before making their way back up the creek to spawn the next generation before dying.

“Such is life,” Pine Lake eighth grader Polina Kritchko said.

Kritchko, who spoke at the event, is passionate about the native salmon and their environment.

“It’s important to protect the kokanee population to maintain biological diversity within our native wildlife and keep our ecosystems functioning,” she said.

She even called for a more comprehensive school curriculum that expands on and teaches children about the native species they live near.

Kokanee only spawn in a few streams that feed into Lake Sammamish. Unlike its relative, the sockeye salmon, kokanee do not go out to the ocean.

The fish don’t turn that famous red tint until they’re nearing the end of their life, usually close to the fall spawning season.

Since 2009, the hatchery has been collecting kokanee offspring in the fall as a way to strengthen them for the journey to the lake. This increases their chances of survival.

“The kokanee salmon life cycle is really hard,” Pine Lake sixth grader Aydn Cole said after participating in the kokanee life cycle obstacle course. Cole, one of the first to release a three-month-old fry into the creek, named his fish “Smitty.” He later learned about Smitty’s plight in the obstacle course.

Since 2010, the hatchery has released 330,000 kokanee fry back into the wildlife. This year, they’re releasing 46,000.

“It was a pretty good release year,” Issaquah Hatchery Supervisor Darin Combs said.

These fish won’t return to this creek for three or four years.