Salmon

Atlantic salmon

Chum Salmon of a breeding season

Ovary of the Chum Salmon was opened and loosened

Salmon is a kind of teleost fish. It is a general term for commercially important ray-finned fish from the family Salmonidae. Salmon belong to the same family of fish as the trout.

Most kinds of salmon live in salt water, or migrate between rivers and the sea. Many people like to eat salmon, so sometimes the fish is grown in fish farms.

As the salmon go upstream to the spawning grounds, they may face obstruction from beaver dams. Sluice gates have to be provided so the gravid female salmon can get to the spawning grounds. This is a problem caused by the re-introduction of beavers to the U.K. Sluice gates are opened for the salmon at breeding time. Salmon farms are also possible, in which the fish are non-migratory, but then they have to be fed artificially.

Coloring

Salmons get the pink color of their flesh from a pigment called astaxanthin. Wild salmon get it from the krill and shrimp they eat, while farmed salmon gets traces of it in kibble (compound feed). If they don't have the pigment, their flesh has a gray color.

Eating

Usual ways to make food out of salmon are smoking, cold smoking and graving.

Main species

• Atlantic salmon
• Australian salmon
• Chinook salmon
• Chum salmon
• Coho salmon
• Indian Salmon
• Pink salmon
• Sockeye salmon

Other websites

• Salmon Nation A place and idea for "reliable prosperity."
• Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission
• Seafood Watch from the Monterey Bay Aquarium
• Is Something Fishy Going On? (red dyes in farmed fish) Archived 2007-02-20 at the Wayback Machine