Wild Salmon
Photo by Art Wolfe.
The natural history of Pacific salmon contains threads much older than any in the tapestry from humanity's comparatively brief stint on planet Earth. The oldest known salmon ancestor fossil is Eosalmo, the 'dawn salmon,' which lived in the lakes and rivers of the northern British Columbia almost 50 million years ago.
In relatively recent geological time (10 to 15 mil lion years ago) salmon put on about 500 pounds, grew to lengths of ten feet long and had giant fangs: Smilodonichthys rastrosus, the sabretooth salmon. Our less fearsome species of modern pacific salmon - coho, chinook, pink, sockeye and chum - emerged two million years ago, then, as now, creatures of the ice, rivers and oceans.
Because salmon return to their native streams to reproduce, they divide naturally into distinct populations or 'stocks'. What all stocks have in common is that they have sustained ecosystems, cultures and economies on the north Pacific Coast for millennia, and they all depend on healthy watersheds for their survival. While forests sustain salmon, salmon also sustain the forest. Spawning salmon bring vital nutrients from the ocean to the forest. The nutrients from spawned carcasses sustain not only wildlife such as bears and eagles, but also the massive trees of the coastal rainforest. Salmon, forests and wildlife are all part of a delicate and beautiful balance that is tragically being undone. Threats from over-fishing, fish farms, global warming and habitat alteration from mining and logging have resulted in over 100 stocks of Pacific salmon having already gone extinct and another 700 are at risk.
