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SpeciesScientists Discover Mysterious New Fish in the Red Sea – and Have Never Seen It Again OceanEye to eye with Britain's hidden sharks at SharkAdemy - Oceanographic RiversIn October, biologists surveying a New York harbor for invasive fish pulled up a bright yellow one. It wasn't an invasive species at all OceanShedd Aquarium Sends Shark Eggs to Bolster Wild Populations SpeciesA rare fish has been found in Lake Ontario, North America, whose entire body is golden. It is a nati..OceanThe Great Sea Reef Is Fiji’s Wildest Dive, and a New Frontier for Conservation OceanEckerd College professor contributes to designating Biscayne Bay an Important Shark and Ray Area SpeciesRio Verde Grande Survey Identifies Fifty-Three Fish Species Facing Flow Reductions FisheriesAdams River Salmon Run in Thompson-Nicola IndiaHilsa production dropped 26% in five years, fisheries minister tells parliament SpeciesScientists Discover Mysterious New Fish in the Red Sea – and Have Never Seen It Again OceanEye to eye with Britain's hidden sharks at SharkAdemy - Oceanographic RiversIn October, biologists surveying a New York harbor for invasive fish pulled up a bright yellow one. It wasn't an invasive species at all OceanShedd Aquarium Sends Shark Eggs to Bolster Wild Populations SpeciesA rare fish has been found in Lake Ontario, North America, whose entire body is golden. It is a nati..OceanThe Great Sea Reef Is Fiji’s Wildest Dive, and a New Frontier for Conservation OceanEckerd College professor contributes to designating Biscayne Bay an Important Shark and Ray Area SpeciesRio Verde Grande Survey Identifies Fifty-Three Fish Species Facing Flow Reductions FisheriesAdams River Salmon Run in Thompson-Nicola IndiaHilsa production dropped 26% in five years, fisheries minister tells parliament

EveryFish

Salmon and trout

Atlantic and Pacific salmon, the trouts, char and whitefish. 40 fish on EveryFish so far.

The salmon family, Salmonidae, includes the salmons, trouts, chars, graylings and whitefishes, about 200 species of cold, clean waters in the Northern Hemisphere. They have a small adipose fin on the back near the tail and a streamlined, spotted body. Many are anadromous: they grow at sea and return to the rivers where they hatched to spawn, often finding them by smell.

The salmon run

Pacific salmon, such as the sockeye and Chinook, swim up to thousands of kilometres up rivers to spawn, turn red or develop hooked jaws on the way and die after spawning, their bodies feeding streams and forests. Atlantic salmon and steelhead can survive to spawn again. The runs feed bears and eagles and sustain Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest, Alaska and northern Europe. Dams, warming rivers and changes at sea have reduced many runs.

Farmed salmon and travelling trout

Atlantic salmon is one of the most valuable farmed fish in the world, raised in sea cages in Norway, Chile, Scotland and Canada. Trout have been carried far beyond their home ranges for sport and food. British anglers brought brown trout to Kashmir and trout to the Nilgiris around the turn of the 20th century, and trout farms in Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Sikkim now raise them. In some places introduced trout have harmed native fish.

Famous salmonid fish

Sockeye salmonRed-bodied spawners of Alaska's lakes

Brown troutBrought to Kashmir from Britain

HuchenThe Danube salmon, a large river predator

OmulA whitefish found only in Lake Baikal

Still to be written: Atlantic salmon, Chinook salmon, Rainbow trout, Arctic char.

Further reading

Nothing matches those filters yet. Take one off, or check back: new pages are written every day.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

Sockeye salmon: Timothy Knepp of the Fish and Wildlife Service., Public domain, source
Omul: Newspaper "Number One" (photographer Petr Sanzhiev), Public domain, source
Brown trout: Duane Raver, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Public domain, source
Huchen: Mladica, Public domain, source

The weekly digest

Every Monday: the fish of the day, new pages on EveryFish, and the conferences and anniversaries of the week ahead.