AFTER watching salmon eggs hatch in their classroom, pupils from a Prudhoe school spent their morning releasing them into a local river.

The juvenile fish known as fry were hatched at Adderlane Academy as part of the Tyne Rivers Trust’s Salmon in the Classroom project which has been funded by local company, Essity.

The project uses the lifecycle of the North Atlantic Salmon to connect school children to their local river, learning about fish migration, life cycles, food chains and healthy river environments.

Last month, the trust set up a tank containing salmon eggs in the school hall. Year 3 and 4 pupils have helped to look after the eggs by monitoring water temperature within the tank and have watched the eggs hatch into alevin and then fry.

And last Wednesday they enjoyed a trip to the riverbank at Haydon Bridge to release the salmon fry back into the river, while also enjoying an outdoor lesson and some river dipping.

Simone Price, project officer at Tyne Rivers Trust said: “The children have done a great job in looking after the eggs and it’s been fantastic to reward them with a trip to the river bank where we’ve done some very practical learning about the creatures and plant life that help the salmon fry to exist and mature into adult salmon.”