Emblem of the Ecosystem
The salmon is a fish that symbolizes bounty, fertility, and the circle of life. Freshly harvested, it sustains entire food chains and powers major industries. In decay, it nourishes trees, plants, soils even its own young. It is a bellwether of ecological balance, and a harbinger of environmental decline. Until now, the salmon has survived over two million years of floods, droughts, disease, volcanic eruptions and ice ages. But, in little more than a century, overfishing, w

ater diversion, habitat destruction and global climate change have driven the wild salmon almost to the point of extinction. Browse this site to learn more about the science of salmon and the industry, history culture and recreation that it has inspired.

Driven and Determined
The salmon is a fish of legendary perseverance and strength, travelling upstream at the rate of 150 kilometres. a day, leaping three metres past a raging waterfall, and digging a knee-deep river bottom nest with nothing more than a battered tailfin. On an evolutionary scale, it is a breathtakingly adaptable fish, tailoring its colour, size, diet and even its life span to the endlessly varying streams, tributaries, lakes, rivers, tidal flats, estuaries, straits, bays and oceans in which it swims. Find out more in Species/Habitat.

Wizard in the Water
The salmon is a remarkable fish. Like a magician, it transforms itself from the smooth-skinned fingerling of the freshwater stream into the silver-sided, hard-scaled adult of the saltwater sea. Then, in an astonishing biological reversal, it changes back, adapting once again to its riparian roots. Armed with an acute sense of smell, guided perhaps by the electrical currents of the earth's magnetic field, the salmon migrates thousands of kilometres to the ocean, yet returns to spawn and die in the same tree-shaded stream where it was born.