The Gift of Salmon
In Alaska, biologists are learning that when wild salmon are free to swim upstream to spawn, dozens of other species flourish too
by Kathleen Dean Moore and Jonathan W. Moore, Photograph by Art Wolfe
published online May 1, 2003
My son and I splash upstream in hip boots, searching for signs of the sockeye salmon that return each summer to spawn and die in this wild Alaskan creek. I've come here to see for myself what he wrote home about last year:
The creek is so full of sockeye, it's a challenge just to walk upstream. I stumble and skid on dead salmon washed up on the gravel bars. It's like stepping on human legs. When I accidentally trip over a carcass, it moans, releasing trapped gas. In shallow water, fish slam into my boots. Spawned-out salmon, moldy and dying, drift down the current and nudge against my ankles. Glaucous-winged gulls swarm and scream upstream, a sign the grizzlies are fishing. The creek stinks of death.
These sockeye salmon are swimming upstream to spawn. In Alaska, salmon still abound, but in the lower 48 many runs have been decimated by dams, habitat degradation, and overfishing. The Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest was once teeming—2,112,500 salmon were caught in 1941; by 1998, the catch had dwindled to only 67,200 fish.
In Alaska, biologists are learning that when wild salmon are free to swim upstream to spawn, dozens of other species flourish too
by Kathleen Dean Moore and Jonathan W. Moore, Photograph by Art Wolfe
published online May 1, 2003
My son and I splash upstream in hip boots, searching for signs of the sockeye salmon that return each summer to spawn and die in this wild Alaskan creek. I've come here to see for myself what he wrote home about last year:
The creek is so full of sockeye, it's a challenge just to walk upstream. I stumble and skid on dead salmon washed up on the gravel bars. It's like stepping on human legs. When I accidentally trip over a carcass, it moans, releasing trapped gas. In shallow water, fish slam into my boots. Spawned-out salmon, moldy and dying, drift down the current and nudge against my ankles. Glaucous-winged gulls swarm and scream upstream, a sign the grizzlies are fishing. The creek stinks of death.
These sockeye salmon are swimming upstream to spawn. In Alaska, salmon still abound, but in the lower 48 many runs have been decimated by dams, habitat degradation, and overfishing. The Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest was once teeming—2,112,500 salmon were caught in 1941; by 1998, the catch had dwindled to only 67,200 fish.
Jon's notes describe the feeding frenzy when the salmon are spawning: On the banks of the salmon stream, we come across bear kitchens, trampled ferns and grasses and decomposing salmon parts, where the bears dragged salmon to eat. Gulls have a hard time breaking open salmon skin by themselves, so flocks of gulls follow the bears, waiting to swoop in and swallow up leftovers. Gulls nest on exposed islands that quickly become littered with salmon bones. As the chicks grow fat, the island is whitewashed with digested salmon. Rain washes guano into the lake. Bald eagles rip into salmon and carry the food to their chicks. Caddis flies feed on salmon carcasses underwater, then hatch into adults that take to the air. Rainbow trout feed on salmon flesh that slowly breaks free from decomposing carcasses. Mink gorge on spawned-out fish. Trees grow rapidly with all this fertilizer. Tourists buzz in on floatplanes to fish, throwing the guts to gulls and freezing fillets in waxed cardboard cartons to be flown back to Tacoma or St. Louis.
www.sierraclub.org/wildlands/species/salmon.asp.
At least 66 species in the Pacific Northwest seek salmon for sustenance, feeding on the eggs, carcasses, and every life stage in between.
www.sierraclub.org/wildlands/species/salmon.asp.
At least 66 species in the Pacific Northwest seek salmon for sustenance, feeding on the eggs, carcasses, and every life stage in between.
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