Illustration of a male Coho Salmon

Salmon is the common name for several species of fish of the family Salmonidae. Several other fish in the family are called trout. Salmon live in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, as well as the Great Lakes and other land locked lakes.

Typically, salmon are anadromous: they are born in fresh water, migrate to the ocean, then return to fresh water to reproduce. However, there are rare species that can only survive in fresh water habitats. This is most likely due to the domestication of these certain species of Salmon. Folklore has it that the fish return to the exact spot where they were born to spawn.

Salmon fisheries

Spawning sockeye salmon in Becharof Creek, Becharof Wilderness, Alaska

Salmon population levels are of concern in the Atlantic and in some parts of the Pacific but in Alaska stocks are still abundant. Fish farming is outlawed and the State of Alaska's fisheries management system is viewed as the global leader in the management of wild, sustainable fish stocks. The most important Alaska Salmon sustainable wild fisheries are located near the Kenai River, Copper River, and in Bristol Bay. In Canada, returning Skeena River wild salmon support commercial, subsistence and recreational fisheries as well as the area's diverse wildlife on the coast and around communities hundreds of miles inland in the watershed. The Columbia River salmon population is now less than 3% of what it was when Lewis and Clark arrived at the river.^[1]

Both Atlantic and Pacific Salmon are important to recreational fishing around the world.

Life cycle

Eggs in different stages of development. In some only a few cells grow on top of the yolk, in the lower right the blood vessels surround the yolk and in the upper left the black eyes are visible, even the little lens

Salmon fry hatching - the larva has grown around the remains of the yolk - visible are the arteries spinning around the yolk and little oildrops, also the gut, the spine, the main caudal blood vessel, the bladder and the arcs of the gills

In order to lay her roe, the female salmon uses her dorsal fin to excavate a shallow depression, called a redd. The redd may sometimes contain 5,000 eggs covering .^[2] The eggs usually range from orange to red in color. One or more males will approach the female in her redd, depositing his sperm, or milt, over the roe.^[3] The female then covers the eggs by disturbing the gravel at the upstream edge of the depression before moving on to make another redd. The female will make as many as 7 redds before her supply of eggs is exhausted. The salmon then die within a few days of spawning.^[3]

The eggs will hatch into alevin or sac fry. The fry quickly develop into parr with camouflaging vertical stripes. The parr stay for one to three years in their natal stream before becoming smolts which are distinguished by their bright silvery colour with scales that are easily rubbed off. It is estimated that only 10% of all salmon eggs survive long enough to reach this stage.^[4] The smolt body chemistry changes, allowing them to live in salt water. Smolts spend a portion of their out-migration time in brackish water, where their body chemistry becomes accustomed to osmoregulation in the ocean.

The salmon spend about one to five years (depending on the species) in the open ocean where they will become sexually mature. The adult salmon returns primarily to its natal stream to spawn. When fish return for the first time they are called whitling in the UK and grilse or peel in Ireland. Prior to spawning, depending on the species, the salmon undergoes changes. They may grow a hump, develop canine teeth, develop a kype (a pronounced curvature of the jaws in male salmon). All will change from the silvery blue of a fresh run fish from the sea to a darker color. Condition tends to deteriorate the longer the fish remain in freshwater, and they then deteriorate further after they spawn becoming known as kelts. Salmon can make amazing journeys, sometimes moving hundreds of miles upstream against strong currents and rapids to reproduce. Chinook and sockeye salmon from central Idaho, for example, travel over and climb nearly from the Pacific ocean as they return to spawn.

Each year, the fish experiences a period of rapid growth, often in summer, and one of slower growth, normally in winter. This results in rings (annuli) analogous to the growth rings visible in a tree trunk. Freshwater growth shows as densely crowded rings, sea growth as widely spaced rings; spawning is marked by significant erosion as body mass is converted into eggs and milt.

Freshwater streams and estuaries provide important habitat for many salmon species. They feed on terrestrial and aquatic insects, amphipods, and other crustaceans while young, and primarily on other fish when older. Eggs are laid in deeper water with larger gravel, and need cool water and good water flow (to supply oxygen) to the developing embryos. Mortality of salmon in the early life stages is usually high due to natural predation and human induced changes in habitat, such as siltation, high water temperatures, low oxygen conditions, loss of stream cover, and reductions in river flow. Estuaries and their associated wetlands provide vital nursery areas for the salmon prior to their departure to the open ocean. Wetlands not only help buffer the estuary from silt and pollutants, but also provide important feeding and hiding areas.

Salmon as food

Edouard Manet: Still Life with Salmon

Filet of an Atlantic Salmon

Raw salmon sashimi

Canned salmon in the U.S. is usually wild Pacific catch, though some farmed salmon is available in canned form. Smoked salmon is another popular preparation method, and can either be hot or cold smoked. Lox can refer either to cold smoked salmon or to salmon cured in a brine solution (also called gravlax). Traditional canned salmon includes some skin (which is harmless) and bone (which adds calcium). Skinless and boneless canned salmon is also available.

Raw salmon flesh may contain Anisakis nematodes, marine parasites that cause Anisakiasis. Before the availability of refrigeration, the Japanese did not consume raw salmon. Salmon and salmon roe have only recently come into use in making sashimi (raw fish) and sushi. <gallery> Image:Poachedsalmon.jpeg|Poached salmon Image:White_Alaskan_Salmon.jpg|White Alaskan Salmon Image:Salmon_roe.jpg|Salmon roe at the Shiogama seafood market in Japan Image:Salmon- Egg Membranes.jpg|Ovary of the salmon was opened and loosened Image:Salade de jambon cru et saumon fume.jpg|Salad with ham and smoked salmon Image:ADHOCMarinade.JPG|Salmon in marinade Image:Thyme and Garlic Grilled Salmon with Mango Salsa, Rosemary Potatoes and Snow Peas (297986190).jpg|Grilled salmon Image:Salmon to buy.jpg|Salmon for sale </gallery>

Environmental pressures

Salmon die shortly after spawning. This one was photographed at a spawning site along Eagle Creek in Oregon.

• Disease transfer from open net cage salmon farming, especially sea lice. The European Commission (2002) concluded ?The reduction of wild salmonid abundance is also linked to other factors but there is more and more scientific evidence establishing a direct link between the number of lice-infested wild fish and the presence of cages in the same estuary.?^[9] It is reported that wild salmon on the west coast of Canada are being driven to extinction by sea lice from nearby salmon farms.^[10]
• For Atlantic salmon smolts, it takes as few as eight sea lice to kill the fish. On the Pacific Coast where the smolt are much smaller, only one or two are needed. In the Atlantic, sea lice have been a proven factor in both Norwegian and Scottish salmon. In the Western Atlantic there has been little research at sea, but sea lice numbers in the period post-2000 do not appear to be a significant factor in the critical decline of endangered inner Bay of Fundy salmon. The situation may have been different in the 1980s and 1990s, but we are unlikely ever to know the true facts on that.
• Overfishing in general but especially commercial netting in the Faroes and Greenland.
• Ocean and river warming which can delay spawning and accelerate transition to smolting.
• Ulcerative dermal necrosis (UDN) infections of the 1970s and 1980s which severely affected adult salmon in freshwater rivers.
• Loss of suitable freshwater habitat, especially degradation of stream pools and reduction of suitable material for the excavation of redds. Historically stream pools were, to a large extent, created by beavers. With the extirpation of the beaver, the nurturing function of these ponds was lost.
• Reduction of the retention of the nutrients brought by the returning adult salmon in stream pools. Without stream pools, dead adult salmon tend to be washed straight back down the streams and rivers.
• The construction of dams, weirs, barriers and other "flood prevention" measures, which bring severe adverse impacts to river habitat and on the accessibility of those habitats to salmon. This is particularly true in the northwest USA, where large numbers of dams have been built in many river systems, including over 400 in the Columbia River Basin.
• Loss of invertebrate diversity and population density in rivers because of modern farming methods and various sources of pollution, thus reducing food availability.
• Reduction in freshwater base flow in rivers and disruption of seasonal flows, because of diversions and extractions, hydroelectric power generation, irrigation schemes, and slackwater reservoirs, which inhibit normal migratory processes and increase predation for salmon.

There are efforts to relieve this situation. As such, several governments and NGOs are sharing in research and habitat restoration efforts.

• In the western Atlantic, the Atlantic Salmon Federation has developed a major sonic tracking technology program to understand the high at-sea mortality since the early 1990s. Ocean arrays are deployed across the Baies des Chaleurs and between Newfoundland and Labrador at the Strait of Belle Isle. Salmon have now been tracked half way from rivers like the Restigouche to Greenland feeding grounds. Now the first line of the Ocean Tracking Network initiative is installed by DFO and Dalhousie University of Halifax from Halifax to the edge of the continental shelf. First results include Atlantic salmon travelling from the Penobscot River in Maine, the "anchor river" for US Atlantic salmon populations.

Results overall are showing that estuary problems exist for some rivers, but issues involving feeding grounds at sea are impacting populations as well. In 2008 returns were markedly improved for Atlantic salmon on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, but no one knows if this is a temporary improvement or sign of a trend.

• NOAA's Office of Protected Resources maintains a list of Endangered Species, the Endangered Species Act
• Sweden has generated a protection program as part of its Biodiversity Action Plan
• State of Salmon maintains an IUCN redlist of endangered salmon
• The Kamchatka Peninsula, in the Russian Far East, contains the world's greatest salmon sanctuary.
• Bear Lake, Alaska, is the site of salmon enhancement activities since 1962.^[11]

Salmon and beavers

Beavers' ponds may provide critical habitat for juvenile salmon. An example of this was seen in the years following 1818 in the Columbia River Basin. In 1818, the British government made an agreement with the U.S. government to allow U.S. citizens access to the Columbia catchment (see Treaty of 1818). At the time, the Hudson's Bay Company sent word to trappers to extirpate all furbearers from the area in an effort to make the area less attractive. In response to the elimination of beavers from large parts of the river system, salmon runs plummeted, even in the absence of many of the factors usually associated with the demise of salmon runs. Salmon recruitment can be effected by beavers' dams because dams can:^[12][13][14]

• Slow the rate at which nutrients are flushed from the system; nutrients provided by adult salmon dying throughout the fall and winter remain available in the spring to newly-hatched juveniles
• Provide deeper water pools where young salmon can avoid avian predators
• Increase productivity through photosynthesis and by enhancing the conversion efficiency of the cellulose-powered detritus cycle
• Create low-energy environments where juvenile salmon put the food they ingest into growth rather than into fighting currents
• Increase structural complexity with many physical niches where salmon can avoid predators

Beavers' dams are able to nurture salmon juveniles in Estuarine tidal marshes where the salinity is less than 10ppm. Beavers build small dams of generally less than high in channels in the Myrtle zone. These dams can be overtopped at high tide and hold water at low tide. This provides refuges for juvenile salmon so they don't have to swim into large channels where they are subject to predation.^[15]

Aquaculture

Artificially-incubated chum salmon

Salmon are carnivorous and are currently fed a meal produced from catching other wild fish and other marine organisms. Consequently, as the number of farmed salmon increase, so does the demand for other fish to feed the salmon. Work continues on substituting vegetable proteins for animal proteins in the salmon diet. Unfortunately though, this substitution results in lower levels of the highly valued Omega-3 content in the farmed product. Intensive salmon farming now uses open net cages which have low production costs but have the drawback of allowing disease and sea lice to spread to local wild salmon stocks.

On a dry-dry basis, it takes 2-4 kg of wild caught fish to produce one kg of salmon.^[16] Salmon farms (feed lots actually, as there is no farming involved) introduce levels of untreated sewage into the ocean that has already been outlawed for sea side communities. This detritus is thought to contribute to toxic algal blooms and also has negative affects on local benthic communities.

Another form of salmon production, which is safer but less controllable, is to raise salmon in hatcheries until they are old enough to become independent. They are then released into rivers, often in an attempt to increase the salmon population. This practice was very common in countries like Sweden before the Norwegians developed salmon farming, but is seldom done by private companies, as anyone may catch the salmon when they return to spawn, limiting a company's chances of benefiting financially from their investment. Because of this, the method has mainly been used by various public authorities as a way of artificially increasing salmon populations in situations where they have declined due to overharvest, construction of dams, and habitat destruction or disruption. Unfortunately, there can be negative consequences to this sort of population manipulation, including genetic "dilution" of the wild stocks, and many jurisdictions are now beginning to discourage supplemental fish planting in favour of harvest controls and habitat improvement and protection. A variant method of fish stocking, called ocean ranching, is under development in Alaska. There, the young salmon are released into the ocean far from any wild salmon streams. When it is time for them to spawn, they return to where they were released where fishermen can then catch them.

An alternative method to hatcheries is to use spawning channels. These are artificial streams, usually parallel to an existing stream with cement or rip-rap sides and gravel bottoms. Water from the adjacent stream is piped into the top of the channel, sometimes via a header pond to settle out sediment. Spawning success is often much better in channels than in adjacent streams due to the control of floods which in some years can wash out the natural redds. Because of the lack of floods, spawning channels must sometimes be cleaned out to remove accumulated sediment. The same floods which destroy natural redds also clean them out. Spawning channels preserve the natural selection of natural streams as there is no temptation, as in hatcheries, to use propholactic chemicals to control diseases.

Farm raised salmon are fed the dye astaxanthin (3,3'-hydroxy-?,?-carotene-4,4'-dione), a carotenoid pigment, so that their flesh color matches wild salmon.^[17]

Diseases and parasites affecting wild salmon

Henneguya salminicola, a protozoan parasite commonly found in the flesh of salmonids on the West Coast of Canada

Henneguya and other parasites in the myxosporean group have a complex lifecycle where the salmon is one of two hosts. The fish releases the spores after spawning. In the Henneguya case, the spores enter a second host, most likely an invertebrate, in the spawning stream. When juvenile salmon out-migrate to the Pacific Ocean, the second host releases a stage infective to salmon. The parasite is then carried in the salmon until the next spawning cycle. The myxosporean parasite that causes whirling disease in trout, has a similar lifecycle.^[18] However, as opposed to whirling disease, the Henneguya infestation does not appear to cause disease in the host salmon - even heavily infected fish tend to return to spawn successfully.

According to Dr. Kieser, a lot of work on Henneguya salminicola was done by scientists at the Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo in the mid-1980, in particular, an overview report ^[19] which states that "the fish that have the longest fresh water residence time as juveniles have the most noticeable infections. Hence in order of prevalence coho are most infected followed by sockeye, chinook, chum and pink." As well, the report says that, at the time the studies were conducted, stocks from the middle and upper reaches of large river systems in British Columbia such as Fraser, Skeena, Nass and from mainland coastal streams in the southern half of B.C. "are more likely to have a low prevalence of infection." The report also states "It should be stressed that Henneguya, economically deleterious though it is, is harmless from the view of public health. It is strictly a fish parasite that cannot live in or affect warm blooded animals, including man".

According to Klaus Schallie, Molluscan Shellfish Program Specialist with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, "Henneguya salminicola is found in southern B.C. also and in all species of salmon. I have previously examined smoked chum salmon sides that were riddled with cysts and some sockeye runs in Barkley Sound (southern B.C., west coast of Vancouver Island) are noted for their high incidence of infestation."

As noted above, the Lepeophtheirus salmonis, a sea louse, causes deadly infestations of farm-grown and wild salmon. On the Pacific coast of Canada, the louse-induced mortality of pink salmon is commonly over 80%.^[10]

Species

The various species of salmon have many names, and varying behaviors.

Atlantic Ocean species

Atlantic salmon

• Atlantic salmon or Salmon (Salmo salar), was the first salmon to be classified. Atlantic salmon have also been proven to have antifreeze proteins (AFP). This prevents the fishes' body from freezing for up to ?2.5 °C. The AFP bind to the ice crystals when they are small and stop them from growing.^[20]

Pacific Ocean species

Pacific species belong to the genus Oncorhynchus, some examples include;

• Cherry salmon (Oncorhynchus masu or O. masou) is found only in the western Pacific Ocean in Japan, Korea and Russia and also landlocked in central Taiwan's Chi Chia Wan Stream.^[21]
• Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) is also known in the USA as King or Blackmouth Salmon, and as Spring Salmon in British Columbia. Chinook are the largest of all Pacific salmon, frequently exceeding .^[22]The name Tyee means Chinook over 30 pounds in British Columbia. Chinook salmon are known to range as far north as the Mackenzie River and Kugluktuk in the central Canadian arctic ^[23].
• Chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta) is known as Dog or Calico salmon in some parts of the USA. This species has the widest geographic range of the Pacific species:^[24] south to the Sacramento River in California in the eastern Pacific and the island of Ky?sh? in the Sea of Japan in the western Pacific; north to the Mackenzie River in Canada in the east and to the Lena River in Siberia in the west.
• Coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) is also known in the USA as Silver salmon. This species is found throughout the coastal waters of Alaska and British Columbia and up most clear-running streams and rivers. It is also now known to occur, albeit infrequently, in the Mackenzie River^[25].
• Pink salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha), known as humpies in south east Alaska, are found from northern California and Korea, throughout the northern Pacific, and from the Mackenzie River^[26] in Canada to the Lena River in Siberia, usually in shorter coastal streams. It is the smallest of the Pacific species, with an average weight of to . ^[27]
• Sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) is known in the USA as Red salmon.^[28] This lake-rearing species is found south as far as the Klamath River in California in the eastern Pacific and northern Hokkaid? Island in Japan in the western Pacific and as far north as Bathurst Inlet in the Canadian Arctic in the east and the Anadyr River in Siberia in the west. Although most adult Pacific salmon feed on small fish, shrimp and squid; sockeye feed on plankton that they filter through gill rakers.^[3]

True Salmon

Steelhead are true salmon belonging to the taxonomic family Salmonidae. All modern books list it as being such. There is much confusion on this, and many books do not state this clearly. ^[29] This section remains here to keep people from adding it in, and to reduce wear on this article.

• Steelhead or Steelhead trout or Rainbow trout (Oncorhychus mykiss) are river spawners, usually found in the same rivers that produce chinook, especially the Columbia, Snake, Skeena, and other large rivers on the Pacific Coast. Steelhead have also been introduced into some rivers surrounding the Laurentian Great Lakes.

Other species

• Land-locked salmon (Salmo salar sebago) live in a number of lakes in eastern North America. This subspecies of Atlantic Salmon is non-migratory, even when access to the sea is not barred.
• Kokanee salmon is a land-locked form of sockeye salmon.
• Huchen or Danube salmon (Hucho hucho), the largest permanent fresh water salmonid

Salmon in mythology

In Irish mythology, the hero Fionn mac Cumhaill, leader of the Fianna, gained powers of perception from a salmon. The young Fionn met the poet Finegas near the river Boyne and studied under him. Finegas had spent seven years trying to catch the salmon of knowledge which lived in a pool on the Boyne, for whoever ate the salmon would gain all the knowledge in the world. Eventually he caught it and told the boy to cook it for him. While cooking it Fionn burst a blister on the salmon's skin, burning his thumb, and instinctively put his thumb in his mouth, swallowing a piece of the salmon's skin. This imbued him with the salmon's wisdom.^[30]

The salmon is also one of the incarnations of both Tuan mac Cairill^[31] and Fintan mac Bóchra^[32].

In Welsh mythology, the salmon of Llyn Llyw is the oldest animal in the world. King Arthur and his knights are charged with finding Mabon ap Modron, and consult several animals?an ousel, a stag, an owl and an eagle?before finding the salmon, who lets Cai and Bedwyr ride its back to the walls of Mabon's prison in Gloucester. ^[33]

In Norse mythology, when Loki, god of mischief and strife, tricked Hod the blind god into killing Baldr, god of beauty and light, Loki jumped into a river and transformed himself into a salmon in order to escape punishment from the other gods. When they held out a net to trap him he attempted to leap over it but was caught by Thor who grabbed him by the tail with his hand, and this is why the salmon's tail is tapered.^[34]

Salmon are central to Native American mythology on the Pacific coast, from the Haida to the Nootka.

References

Durham Ranger, a classic design of salmon fly used in the sport of fly fishing.

External links

• The Salmon 2100 Project An unbiased collaboration on the outlook for wild pacific salmon
• University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections ? Salmon Collection A collection of documents describing salmon of the Pacific Northwest.
• ''Salmon-omics: Effect of Pacific Decadal Oscillation on Alaskan Chinook Harvests and Market Price'', Kevin Ho, Columbia University, 2005.
• Alaska Department of Fish & Game Salmon Species Descriptions
• Tribal Salmon Restoration Plan
• Cholesterol content in salmon
• Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition a non-profit union of over 50 organizations and 6 million members working to restore wild salmon in the Pacific NW, especially the Columbia/Snake basins.
• Think Salmon A salmon sustainability and awareness effort
• Wild Salmon Center
• SalmonFund.org A registered non-profit for sustainable development of salmon habitat in the Pacific Northwest.
• Salmon Nation A movement to create a bioregional community, based on the historic spawning area of Pacific salmon (CA to AK).
• One Hour Radio Broadcast on Farmed Salmon in British Columbia, Canada - Kootenay Co-op Radio's Deconstructing Dinner program
• Is Something Fishy Going On? by Linda Joyce Forristal, worldandi.com, 2003 - Salmon specific.
• Is Something Fishy Going On? by Judith E. Foulke, FDA Consumer, September 1993 - General talk on consumer fraud in the fish industry, with a section on salmon coloring.
• Effects of Salmon on the skin disorder Acne
• History of Salmon Canning in British Columbia
• ''Salmon fossils dated to 1 million years''
• NASCO, North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization
• Genetic Status of Atlantic Salmon in Maine: Interim Report (2002) online book
• U.S. Code of Federal Regulations 21CFR161 Fish and Shellfish
• http://www.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/species/salmon/default_e.htm
• http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/Library/321160.pdf

Further reading

• Atlas of Pacific Salmon, Xanthippe Augerot and the State of the Salmon Consortium, University of California Press, 2005, hardcover, 152 pages, ISBN 0-520-24504-0
• Making Salmon: An Environmental History of the Northwest Fisheries Crisis, Joseph E. Taylor III, University of Washington Press, 1999, 488 pages, ISBN 0-295-98114-8
• Trout and Salmon of North America, Robert J. Behnke, Illustrated by Joseph R. Tomelleri, The Free Press, 2002, hardcover, 359 pages, ISBN 0-7432-2220-2
• Come back, salmon, By Molly Cone, Sierra Club Books, 48 pages, ISBN 0-87156-572-2 - A book for juveniles describes the restoration of 'Pigeon Creek'.
• The salmon: their fight for survival, By Anthony Netboy, 1973, Houghton Mifflin Co., 613 pages, ISBN 0-395-14013-7
• A River Lost, by Blaine Harden, 1996, WW Norton Co., 255 pages, ISBN 0-393-31690-4. (Historical view of the Columbia River system).
• River of Life, Channel of Death, by Keith C. Peterson, 1995, Confluence Press, 306 pages, ISBN 978-0870714962. (Fish and dams on the Lower Snake river.)
• Salmon, by Dr Peter Coates, 2006, ISBN 1861892950
• NEWS January 31, 2007: U.S. Orders Modification of Klamath River - Dams Removal May Prove More Cost-Effective for allowing the passage of Salmon
• Salmon age and sex composition and mean lengths for the Yukon River area, 2004 / by Shawna Karpovich and Larry DuBois. Hosted by Alaska State Publications Program.
• Trading Tails: Linkages Between Russian Salmon Fisheries and East Asian Markets. Shelley Clarke. (November 2007). 120pp. ISBN 978 1 85850 230 4.

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