It’s a peaceful scene here at the channel leading out of the Ballard Locks to the Puget Sound and into the Pacific Ocean.
At this time of year the salmon are swimming up this channel. Compelled by an irresistible instinct and guided by an incredible memory and navigational system they are returning to start a new generation, to the same streams where they were hatched three years or so earlier.
It won’t be an easy journey. Just a few more yards to the right they will encounter this dam. Behind the dam is Lake Union, about 18 feet higher than the level of the channel. They will have to leap that barrier against the rushing water.
Three years earlier, just a few weeks or months old, and only three or four inches in length, as baby salmon or smolt, they made the opposite trip, riding these thundering plumes of water designed to help them survive the plunge.
To enable the mature salmon to leap this barrier, a salmon ladder has been built. It’s a series of steps, each one a small pool. The salmon jump from one to the other, resting between leaps.
Some underwater windows at the last steps allow visitors to watch and photograph the salmon from close up before they make their final leap up to Lake Union.
The salmon you see in the video clip below are not in an aquarium, they are wild, gathering strength and speed for that final leap.
4 comments:
louis,
It is great that such thoughts as the salmon steps were built into the structure which otherwise will disturb the breeding of the salmon. It is so wise of the authority. It is amazing that the salmons adapt easily to the man made facilities which was absent during their parents earlier migration.
Hi Zawi,
Directly across from this salmon ladder, on the opposite shore of the channel, is another series of watery steps, the Crittenden or Ballard Locks, for ships of various kinds including the salmon fishing fleet that operates out in the Pacific.
It's a vivid illustration of the balance between economic and environmental considerations which the states of Washington and Oregon try to maintain.
Hi Louis
I saw on National Geographic channel a documentary on salmon. Awesome stuff.
They migrate hundreds or even thousand of miles to reach their exact breeding grounds. They hatch in rivers, migrate to the sea and return "home" to lay eggs.
But I was also told that the salmon in the North Pacific spawn only once, and they die after laying their eggs.
Yes, Fauziah, it is amazing how salmon can find their birthplace after swimming years and thousands of miles out in the Pacific.
They do indeed die after spawning (see new post)
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