Chinook Arrive at Nature Center

Visitors to the MK Nature Center in Boise can view chinook salmon in their spawning phase. The four males and two females were trucked from the Rapid River hatchery July 10. These recent arrivals from the Pacific Ocean can be seen in the Nature Center's outdoor viewing windows. There is no charge for admission to the Nature Center located at 600 South Walnut. Visitors who want to see the chinook should not wait too long; like all Pacific salmon, these will die when spawning time is over-probably about one month. Bringing chinook to the Nature Center provides the public with a chance to see one of the most historically, economically, biologically and culturally important living symbols of the Pacific Northwest. At least since the last ice age, young chinook have traveled from Idaho all the way down the Salmon, Snake and Columbia Rivers to the ocean where they fed and grew until returning upstream more than 500 miles to the Rapid River near Riggins. The fish on display are four and five years old.