Salmon Deaths within Saltwater

On November 30, The News Tribune, a newspaper from Tacoma, WA had an interesting article. A Canadian firm (Kintama Research Corp in Nanaimo, B.C.) is tracking schools of fish; this article was about Salmon and Sturgeon, from the rivers out to the ocean and back again.

Their findings about salmon: "Previously it was thought that the highest mortality rates for salmon were in the freshwater streams and rivers as the headed to the saltwater ocean. But using the tracking system, researchers found that within the first few weeks of entering the ocean, 40 percent of the salmon died."

Now I guess they will have to try to figure out why the salmon die in the ocean. With no previous research in this area, it may be possible that that death rate has always been high, but in the past there we such huge numbers of fish that it didn't matter. Within all of Nature, there is a high death rate amongst the youth of any species.

Larry :D ---sagefisher---