Students stock Atchafalaya Basin with paddlefish they raised

A group of students from Assembly Christian School of New Iberia, led by Monique Sanchez, released paddlefish that they raised in their classroom into Henderson Lake.

The event was part of “Native Fish in the Classroom,” a project of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF).

Angela Capello, LDWF biologist supervisor and coordinator of the Native Fish in the Classroom Project, educated the group about paddlefish, a.k.a. spoonbill catfish.

Paddlefish are a primitive species with smooth, slimy skin like a catfish, a cartilage skeleton like a shark, and a long, flat snout, or rostrum, like a sawfish but without the teeth. It eats like a whale, gulping huge amounts of water and filtering out the plankton with specialized gills.

It’s found, albeit in significantly diminished quantities, in almost all of Louisiana’s natural water bodies, with Henderson Lake leading in the rare recreational catch.

Commercial harvest, mostly for their caviar -producing roe, has long been halted.

Atchafalaya Basinkeeper executive director Dean Wilson spoke to the students about swamp ecology in the Basin.

ABK Board of Trustees member David Allemond hosted the event at his levee restaurant and marina, McGee’s Landing.

This is not the first time Monique Sanchez and Assembly Christian School students have been involved in ecological projects. In February 2013, Sanchez and her 4-H Club participated in a vegetation restoration project at Lake Fausse Pointe State Park in partnership with ABK, Louisiana State Parks, and LSU AgCenter’s Youth Wetlands Program.