By Abigail Popple, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Rocky Mountain Goat Nearly 9,000 chinook salmon fry swam free at this year’s salmon release day in Valemount. Organized in tandem with Simpcw First Nation, Tourism Valemount and Prince George-based Spruce City Wildlife Association, the annual event allows locals to watch as salmon are released into Swift Creek with the goal of replenishing the local salmon population. This year’s event included some changes that will allow organizers to better track growth in the salmon population, said Dustin Snyder, president of the Spruce City Wildlife Association. Organizers cut off the fry’s adipose fin – a small, fleshy fin three quarters of the way down a fish’s back – a technique that marks hatchery fish. When hatchery fish are caught, fishers send their heads…