User: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. Folklore has it that the fish return to the exact spot where they were born to spawn, and modern research shows that usually at least 90% of the fish that spawn in a particular stream were born there.[citation needed] In Alaska, the crossing over to other streams allows salmon to populate new streams, such as those that emerge as a glacier retreats. The precise method salmon use to navigate has not been entirely established, though their keen sense of smell is certainly involved. In all species of Pacific salmon, the mature individuals die within a few days or weeks of spawning, a trait known as semelparity. However, even in those species of salmon that may survive to spawn more than once (iteroparity), post-spawning mortality is quite high (perhaps as high as 40 to 50%.) Those species average about two or, perhaps, three spawning events per individual.

Salmon has long been at the heart of the culture and livelihood of coastal dwellers. Most peoples of the Northern Pacific shore had a ceremony to honor the first return of the year. For many centuries, people caught salmon as they swam upriver to spawn. A famous spearfishing site on the Columbia River at Celilo Falls was inundated after great dams were built on the river. The Ainu, of northern Japan, taught dogs how to catch salmon as they returned to their breeding grounds en masse. Now, salmon are caught in bays and near shore. Drift net fisheries have been banned on the high seas except off Northumberland on the east coast of England.

Salmon population levels are of concern in the Atlantic and in some parts of the Pacific but in northern British Columbia and Alaska stocks are still abundant. The Skeena River alone has millions of wild salmon returning which support commercial fisheries, aboriginal food fisheries, sports fisheries and the area's diverse wildlife on the coast and around communities hundreds of miles inland in the watershed. Columbia River salmon levels are now less than 3% than when Lewis and Clark arrived at the river.[1]

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

In the southern hemisphere, there is the Australian salmon, which is a salt water species not related in any way to the salmonidae. It is found along the southern coastline of Australia and Tasmania. Commonly caught there with large beach nets, its use as a commercial fish has been declining over the last 20 years.