Learn About Salmon

Did you know there are five species of Pacific salmon? They are Chum, Sockeye, Chinook, Coho and Pink.

At the Water Center, you can view Coho salmon on display, part of the statewide “Salmon in the Classroom” program. The Water Center receives eggs from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Lewis River Hatchery. The Coho salmon eggs hatch in late February or early March. When the eggs hatch, the hatchling is call an alevin. The egg is still attached to the belly of the fish. The alevin will absorb the egg to gain strength so it can start to swim. Once it is swimming and has absorbed all of its egg, it is call a “fry.” In the river or stream, the fry will eat bugs.

On occasion, you may even see the Coho fry at the Water Center eating a bug!

Coho salmon fry will live in fresh water for more than a year, then become smolts and head out to the ocean in April or May, the year after they were hatched. The Coho will stay in the ocean for two years eating krill and fish. After two years, they return to fresh water to spawn. Female Coho use their fins to create a nest in the gravel that is called a redd. Then after the eggs have been fertilized by the male, both the male and the female salmon die.

Salmon Facts:

• Salmon are anadromous fish, which means they live in salt water but return to fresh water to spawn.
• Salmon live the majority of their lives in the ocean.
• Adult salmon return to their “natal” stream, where they were hatched, to spawn.
• Salmon find their natal stream by following chemical mapping imprinted within them as they go to sea.
• Salmon like to lay their eggs in shaded gravel beds.
• Salmon female use their fins to clear out a depression in the gravel.
• Salmon female will lay about 4,000 eggs, while the male emits milt to fertilize them.
• After the adult salmon spawn, they swim far upstream and die.
• When salmon die, their bodies help rejuvenate the nutrients in the stream as they decompose.

Excerpted on July 22 2009
http://www.cityofvancouver.us/watercenter.asp?waterID=24980&waterSubID=27445