Saturday, October 7th 2006

This morning we went to the world’s largest Sockeye Salmon spawning grounds. Every four years, over 2 million salmon swim upstream from the ocean into this river system to breed right before they die. The males and females turn a bright red over their whole body, with a bright green head. The brighter the fish, the better condition they are in. The males also develop a hump on their back to signal dominance over other males once they have established a territory – the bigger the hump, the better the male.
It was so amazing to see so many fish condensed into such a small area. They are very aggressive with one another, biting and hitting each other. The fish also jump out of the water to try and fight their way up stream. In the shallow parts especially the fish will have their bodies nearly two thirds out of the water as they swim upstream.
The banks of the river are covered with decaying salmon bodies of fish that didn’t get a chance to mate before dying; mated early; were over taken with body fungal infections or killed off by competitors. The water decomposes the fish bodies very quickly, and those nutrients go into the riparian zone to feed the trees and wildlife. Anyways, it was totally amazing to see…great way to start the trip!