Filer Fish Research

 FILER, A TOWN of barely 2,000 residents on the road between the University of Idaho’s Hagerman Fish Culture Experiment Station and Twin Falls, may be small. But Filer High School students routinely do science that greatly impresses a University of Idaho faculty researcher. Dr. Matt Powell, research scientist at Hagerman says his students are very smart and they carry out a very high level of original research in fish genetics. They have by far  exceeded his expectations and he believes they may make a major contribution in their research: Most of the research has to do with looking at populations of native trout and these students are examining whether or not they are hybridized with hatchery fish and so it has a conservation/biology bent to it. Also have some students from Filer who are looking at differences in gene expression in fish that we have fed different diets to.”

Students work on $35,000 worth of equipment donated by Hagerman, a world-class fish nutrition and genetics research facility.