“I mean, they’re RECOVERING”, said an unnamed assistant associate coordinator for the Columbia Upper Reach Transitional Habitat Refunctioning branch of the Poor Suffering Salmon Assistance and Support Group. “We can’t just toss them into the river that takes them to the ocean where they get chomped by some frolicking sea lion.”

Instead, the group has a unique interventional solution called the Restuary. After their difficult and challenging life at the hatchery, where they are kept in predator-free, temperature and oxygen-controlled water and fed regularly, the young salmon are moved to the halfway house, halfway between the hatchery and the river. There they are fed and nurtured but also exposed to the challenges they’ll face, like wild temperature swings of 3-4 degrees, moving water, and videos of the many many things that want to catch or eat them.

“We just want to give them a chance to get used to the difficult life ahead”, said another apprentice assistant coordinator. “Then, maybe, they’ll have a reasonable chance of surviving the few years before they swim a zillion miles back to where it all started so they can be captured, have the eggs squeezed out of them, and die.”

The Restuary features the first ever salmon sofas, salmon-centric television, and fin-friendly drum circles that “do a remarkable job of taking their minds off ending up as a grilled filet with a mustard dill sauce.”