Salmon Facts

I am so excited to learn about salmon are you?  I cannot wait to make our giant salmon. Are you excited too? I cannot wait to paint our adult salmon. Did you know that beaver ponds provide a critical habitat for juvenile salmon?  Salmon love both saltwater and freshwater.


After  living for many years at sea, salmon travel a  long distance home to return to the river in which they were born to spawn.


Salmon have a really strong sense of smell. They can smell from the ocean and from where they were born. The young salmon eat insects, crustaceans and other small creatures. Adults eat small fish and crustaceans. (Crustaceans are things like shrimps and crabs. ) Chinook are born in fresh water. But they spend most of their life in the ocean. They swim upstream to spawn. Then they die.


When salmon are in rivers and streams, they need shelter. They need logs and branches. These give them places to hide.

PREDATORS

Bears and other mammals, including  humans. Salmon are endangered  because  of you. Humans are over fishing so scientist are trying to find ways to help salmon. They are finding solutions so far they have the fish ladder and other things.

THREATS

The loss of places to spawn and develop this partly due to dams. Fish ladders can help with this. Dams also affect water temperature. Salmon need cool water. Power generation makes water warm.

What did you learn?

Spawning salmon trying to move upstream near Solomon Gulch fish hatchery. Prince William Sound. Alaska. USA
Spawning salmon trying to move upstreamAlevin in freshwater

Alevin in freshwater

Smolt in a river
Smolt in a river