Children and parents packed the Coastline Conference and Event Center on Jan. 16, wandering between the 45 fish-themed stations set up for Cape Fear River Watch’s (CFRW) StriperFest Community Education Day.
Four years ago, when the family-friendly component was introduced to the annual StriperFest, only 25 people attended. Since then, the event has swelled to more than 400 guests and hundreds of volunteers from numerous environmental groups.
The two-day StriperFest also featured a live auction and tag-and-release fishing tournament to raise money to restore the local fisheries. Striped bass and sturgeon populations have dwindled ever since three dams were built across the Cape Fear River, blocking the fish from reaching their spawning grounds.
One dam was retrofitted recently to help the fish cross, and StriperFest funds support CFRW’s efforts to retrofit the other two. Several stations at Community Education Day sought to simplify that process for the children.
CFRW volunteers created handmade fish puppets and entertained children with a story about three fish trying to leap over a dam so they could lay their eggs. Six-year-old twins Andrew and Cameron Coulthard giggled at the fishes’ humorously unsuccessful efforts and clapped at the eventual happy ending, when the retrofit gave the fish a path home.
Their mother, Sandy Diehl, said she was pleasantly surprised at how engaged her children were with the puppet show, given the high expectations children have for entertainment now.
“That was really neat,” she said. “There’s a whole science behind it, but it’s still something they can make entertaining.”
Nearby, CFRW volunteers Roger Shew and Jeannie Lennon presented children with a miniature model of a dam to create their own retrofit. The children used stone to build what Shew likened to a staircase for the fish to ascend up and over the dam. He said the goal of every StriperFest activity — casting fishing lines, dissecting fish, testing PH levels, examining organisms under a microscope or getting fish-themed face paintings — was to entertain as well as educate, because, he said, “If you can entertain, it gives you the opportunity to educate.”
Riverkeeper Kemp Burdette agreed, saying even artistic activities like creating fish whirligigs taught scientific lessons.
“The kids made art, but they also learned about the fish they were making, so they learned about migratory fish,” he said.
Even if the children don’t grasp the finer details of retrofitting dams and restoring fisheries, CFRW education coordinator Kay Lynn Hernandez said she hopes they leave with a greater interest in the environment.
“We’re living in an era when kids are becoming disconnected with nature,” she said. “If we’re going to achieve a goal of some kind of sustainable world, environmental education is important.”
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