SALMON, AMERICA’S MOST VALUABLE FISH 
199 
nearly 25 pounds in the Columbia, and is 
often caught weighing 40 to 60 pounds, 
while occasionally examples of over 100 
pouncis are taken. While found from 
California to China, it attains its greatest 
abundance in the Sacramento, Columbia, 
Yukon, and other large streams. 
The species called Blueback salmon on 
the Columbia, Sockeye on Puget Sound, 
and Redfish or Red salmon in Alaska, 
averages only five pounds in weight and 
never exceeds twelve. It attains greatest 
abundance in the Columbia, the Fraser, 
and in various streams throughout 
Alaska. Its meat is rich in quality and 
deep red in color, and the fish is there¬ 
fore in great demand for canning. While 
a beautiful fish when in salt water, with 
bright blue back and silver sides, after 
entering fresh water it deteriorates 
rapidly in food value and appearance, 
the head turns to olive green, and the 
entire back and sides become crimson 
and finally dark blood red. 
The Silver or Coho salmon, with a gen¬ 
eral distribution in the coastal streams, 
averages 6 pounds in weight and rarely 
exceeds 25 or 30. 
The smallest species is the Humpback, 
so called from the well-marked nuchal 
hump developed by the male in fall. The^ 
extremes of weight for mature examples 
are 3 and 11 pounds, with 4 pounds as the 
average. The region of greatest abun¬ 
dance is Puget Sound to southeast Alaska. 
The remaining species, the Dog or 
Chum salmon, averages 8 pounds in 
weight. It is generally distributed and 
abundant, but, owing to the poor quality 
of the flesh, is the least important of the 
group. The distortion of the jaws in the 
male during the breeding season, while 
characteristic of all the species, is par¬ 
ticularly marked in the Dog salmon. 
INEVITABLE I)EATH AFTER SPAWNING 
The differences in spawning times and 
places of the different species of salmon 
are most interesting. After spending 
most of their lives at sea, growing, ac¬ 
cumulating fat, and storing energy, the 
salmons move inshore and ascend the 
streams. After once beginning their up¬ 
ward journey, they take no food, and in 
fact are physiologically incapable of di¬ 
gesting and assimilating food. 
The Quinnat salmon begins to run in 
spring and pushes its way to the head¬ 
waters of the larger streams. In the 
Columbia basin the species distributes 
itself over 90,000 square miles of Wash¬ 
ington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana, 
its upward limit being insurmountable 
obstructions or falls. In the Snake River 
and the Yukon River the spawning pounds 
lie 2 poo miles by water from the sea. 
The spawning streams of the Red 
salmon are those that arise in lakes, and 
the spawning grounds are in the affluents 
of those lakes. The run begins in May 
and fish continue to come in until October, 
depending on latitude. 
The Silver salmon enters the streams 
from July toOctoberorNovember, but does 
not as a rule ascend for long distances. 
The Humpback runs into fresh water 
in summer and fall, preferably in short 
coast streams, and often spawns within a 
few rods of the ocean. 
The schools of Dog salmon come into 
the stream rather late; in the Columbia 
River and Puget Sound the run extends 
from August to late in November, and 
in Alaska the height of the season is 
about the first of September. 
Now, whether the salmon travel in the. 
streams 2,000 miles or 200 feet to reach 
their spawning grounds, and regardless 
of their physical condition at the time 
they arrive at the particular places re¬ 
quired for the proper development of 
eggs and young, every individual of every 
species dies shortly after spawning. This 
is the most characteristic and remarkable 
event in the life of the Pacific salmons. 
Why this is the case is one of nature’s 
mysteries. It has its parallel in some 
other fishes, in the may-fly, which perishes 
after a few hour’s existence, and in the 
annual plants. We can only say of such 
that they have served their purpose and 
are no longer needed. 
The death habit of the salmons was 
doubtless developed to prevent the over¬ 
stocking of streams, the exhaustion of 
the food supply of the young while in 
fresh water, and the consequent danger 
of the wiping out of species by mere ex¬ 
cess of numbers. This wise precaution 
of nature has become a positive detri¬ 
ment by the appearance of the human 
factor on the scene and the resulting de¬ 
struction of a large proportion of the 
run of each species each year in prac¬ 
tically every stream before the spawning 
act has occurred. 
