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kids / animal-facts
Animal facts |
Select an Animal :
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| Fast Facts: Salmon
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| Name: |
Atlantic or Pacific salmon |
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| Descriptive name: |
Salmonid |
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| Family name: |
Salmonidae |
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| Pacific salmon species name: |
Oncorhynchus |
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| Atlantic salmon species name: |
Salmo |
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| Average weight: |
7 kg |
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| Average wingspan: |
127 to 173 cm |
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Did you know?
Many salmon are anadromous — this means they live in the saltwater of the ocean but return to freshwater, their native river, to spawn.
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Physiology
The salmon is part of a family of fish called Salmonidae, which includes trout
and char. The fish has soft fin rays, a short dorsal fin, a fatty (adipose) fin,
and teeth in its jaws. A young salmon has a splotched colour on its sides for
the first three years of its life, and then its scales turn to silver when it
leaves for the ocean. Upon returning to its native river to reproduce, the
salmon turns black. The head of a female salmon is streamlined throughout its
lifetime. A male, on the other hand, develops a hook, called a kype, in its jaw
before reproducing.
Habitats/Behaviours
A young salmon will stay in the river where it was born for the first one to three years
of its life. It will then leave for the ocean and return only to spawn. Adult salmon are
excellent jumpers and can ascend rapids to reach freshwater. They have been known to cover
over 3,200 kilometres to reach their spawning ground. In the '70s, there were 900,000 Atlantic
salmon returning to spawn; today, there are only 100,000 that return. Atlantic salmon are
able to spawn more than once, but some die of exhaustion after breeding. Pacific salmon
reproduce only once and die shortly after.
There are five species of Pacific salmon on the West Coast: the kokanee, which spends its
whole life in freshwater, the chinook, which grows as long as one metre, the pink Pacific
salmon, known as the smallest Pacific salmon, the chum and the coho salmon.
Range
Atlantic salmon can be found in Quebec and the Maritimes,
while Pacific salmon are found on the West Coast. Salmon aquaculture is big business in Canada – when
humans raise the fish in an aquatic farm. Currently, one out of every two salmonids
are farmed. In 2001, British Columbia's production of farmed salmon was 95,000 tonnes. This
was 65 percent of Canada's total farmed salmon production, and five percent of the world's
total. In the case of wild salmon, the Atlantic salmon, the sockeye salmon and the coho are
listed as threatened or endangered species in Canada.
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