Least ConcernSockeye Salmon
Oncorhynchus nerka
4 countries7 parks5 dive sites
Species group · Bony fish
WAnimals has 5 species of salmon, spread across 2 families (Carangidae, Salmonidae).
Ranges calculated from the profiles that record the figure, not from all 5.
Each one has its own full profile. This group does not replace them: it brings them together.
1 species in this group is in a threatened category according to the IUCN.
Recorded in 34 countries. The ones with the most species in the group:
It changes colour dramatically, from silver to deep red, as it nears the end of its life on the spawning migration, after which it dies.
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It returns to spawn in the very stretch of river where it hatched, navigating first by the Earth's magnetic field in the open sea and then by smell, which lets it recognise the chemical signature of its natal stream.
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It is semelparous: it breeds once and dies. The carcasses bring the river nutrients of marine origin that feed bears, birds and the riverside forest itself.
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It can leap waterfalls up to 4.5 metres high on its migration upriver.
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A female can lay between 1,300 and 2,000 eggs per kilo of body weight.
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It migrates between freshwater rivers, where it hatches and breeds, and the North Atlantic, where it feeds.
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It is the largest of the Pacific salmon, which is why it is called the king salmon.
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The longest upstream journey ever documented in a salmon was made by a chinook: 3,845 km to its spawning grounds.
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From Chinook Salmon
