Describes salmon their habitat, different species, life cycle, dangers they face, and helping them.

Pacific salmon are an important biological and economic resource of countries of the North Pacific rim. They are also a unique group of fish possessing unusually complex life histories. There are seven species of Pacific salmon, five occurring on both the North American and Asian continents (sockeye, pink, chum, chinook, and coho) and two (masu and amago) only in Asia. The life cycle of the Pacific salmon begins in the autumn when the adult female deposits eggs that are fertilized in gravel beds in rivers or lakes. The young emerge from the gravel the following spring and will either migrate immediately to salt water or spend one or more years in a river or lake before migrating. Migrations in the ocean are extensive during the feeding and growing phase, covering thousands of kilometres. After one or more years the maturing adults find their way back to their home river, returning to their ancestral breeding grounds to spawn. They die after spawning and the eggs in the gravel signify a new cycle. Upon this theme Pacific salmon have developed many variations, both between as well as within species. Pacific Salmon Life Histories provides detailed descriptions of the different life phases through which each of the seven species passes. Each chapter is written by a scientist who has spent years studying and observing a particular species of salmon. Some of the topics covered are geographic distribution, transplants, freshwater life, ocean life, development, growth, feeding, diet, migration, and spawning behaviour. The text is richly supplemented by numerous maps, illustrations, colour plates, and tables and there is a detailed general index, as well as a useful geographical index.

The kokanee salmon is a land locked sockeye salmon. The story is about the kokanee salmon’s life cycle from being laid as an egg in a freshwater stream to returning to that same stream four years later as an adult spawner. The salmon like a certain habitat to lay their eggs. The temperature of the water, water flow, size of rocks in which they build their redds. The book also explains how they choose their mate, lay the eggs, fertilize the eggs and how they protect them from predators. The salmon choose the stream where they were laid as salmon eggs and how they grow in the stream to hatch in the spring to return to the lake to live for about four years

Naturalists and recreational anglers will welcome the paperback edition of this comprehensive volume, first published in 1986, which describes every species in the lakes and streams of the Great Basin. Includes an updated checklist of established species, discussion of threatened and endangered species, glossary, bibliography, and index.

To the Gitxsan people of Northwestern British Columbia, the sockeye salmon is more than just a source of food. Over its life cycle, it nourishes the very land and forests that the Skeena River runs through and where the Gitxsan make their home. The Sockeye Mother explores how the animals, water, soil, and seasons are all intertwined.

Table of contents

Rhyming text and illustrations describe the life cycle of a salmon.