salmon fly: see mayfly.

salmon, member of the Salmonidae, a family of marine fish that spawn in freshwater, including the salmons, the trouts, and the chars. Many authorities place the whitefish and the grayling among the Salmonidae, so similar are they in structure and habits. The Salmonidae are the most highly developed of the herringlike fishes, characterized by soft, rayless adipose fins, and are denizens of cold, oxygen-rich waters. In general they are silvery in the sea and more brightly hued in brooks and lakes.

The Salmon Family

There are three genera of Salmonidae: Salmo, Oncorhynchus, and Salvelinus. Unfortunately, the common names of the species do not correspond to the natural divisions. The "true," or black-spotted, trout is actually a Salmo, and the speckled, or brook, trout of the E United States is a Salvelinus and should more properly be called a char, as similar fishes in Europe are.

The American species of Salmo were originally split by the Mississippi basin, and were represented in the east by the Atlantic salmon and in the west by the rainbow and cutthroat trouts. The Atlantic salmon was a plentiful source of food for the Native Americans and the colonists, but its populations have declined. This salmon is a large fish (15 lb/6.8 kg average) found along the Atlantic coast of NE America, in Greenland, and in Europe. When in the sea it feeds on crustaceans, but as it approaches the the large rivers to spawn, it changes its diet to small fish. A landlocked species, the Sebago salmon, is found in Maine. Of the many races of cutthroat trout, some are now extinct; the greenback trout of the Colorado Rockies was recently rediscovered. The steelhead trout is believed to be the silvery saltwater phase of the colorful rainbow trout. Rainbows and cutthroats are known to hybridize, and a new species, the Gila trout, combining characteristics of both, has been discovered in New Mexico. The brown trout, introduced from Europe in 1883, requires warmer waters than the native species and is important in fish-management programs.

The genus Oncorhynchus is comprised of the five species of Pacific salmon, found from S California to Alaska. These fish are the most important commercial species. Canning centers are located on the Columbia River and on Puget Sound and in British Columbia, Siberia, and N Japan. The largest and commercially most important of the Pacific salmon is the chinook (or quinnat or king) salmon, which averages 20 lb (9 kg) and may reach 100 lb (45 kg). It is found from the Bering Sea to Japan and S California and is marketed fresh, smoked, and canned. The white-fleshed fish of this normally red-fleshed species have become highly prized in the restaurant trade. The blueback salmon (called sockeye in Oregon and redfish in Alaska) has firm reddish flesh and forms the bulk of the canned salmon. Also of economic importance are the humpback, or pink, salmon, the smallest of the group; and the silver, or coho, salmon, important in the fall catch because of its late spawning season. The meat of the dog salmon is palatable when fresh or smoked.

The genus Salvelinus includes the various European chars; the common brook, or speckled, trout, a popular game fish of E North America, introduced in the West; and the Dolly Varden, or bull, trout, a similar western form. A fourth genus, Cristivomer, contains one species, the common lake trout, and one subspecies, the siscowet, or fat trout. These are deepwater fishes of North American lakes, more sluggish, less migratory, and bulkier than the other Salmonidae; individuals have been recorded at 100 lb (45 kg). A fish called the splake has been produced by crossing the speckled trout and the lake trout.

Life Cycle

The basic life pattern of the Salmonidae begins when, within the first year or two of life, the fish travels downstream to the sea, where it grows to its full size. After reaching maturity (one to nine years) it returns to its hatching site to spawn. The Pacific salmon are famed for their grueling journeys of hundreds of miles to their headwater breeding grounds. When they begin this trip they are in prime condition, but they cease eating when they leave the sea and arrive months later, exhausted and battered by their fight upstream against swift currents and over falls. Those that survive the trip and escape fishermen and predatory animals spawn with their last strength and then die. These salmon are taken at the mouths of large rivers, as they begin their upstream migration. The Atlantic salmon and the trouts spawn more than once. Most trouts migrate to the sea if there is a cold-water connection, but also will sometimes live and reproduce if landlocked.

Conservation

Because of such human activities as overfishing, development, dam building, logging, and farm irrigation, Pacific salmon populations have greatly declined, and many species are now listed as rare and endangered. The United States and Canada negotiated a conservation agreement in 1999 that includes setting catch limits based upon ongoing scientific assessments of salmon population levels. In addition, multiple-approach conservation efforts are under way in Washington and Oregon states to restore the salmon runs. For reasons less well understood, and despite international conservation measures, Atlantic salmon populations have also sharply declined. The desirability of salmon as food fish has led to their being raised in aquaculture.

Classification

Salmon are classified in the phylum Chordata, subphylum Vertebrata, class Osteichthyes, order Clupeiformes, family Salmonidae.

Salmon Wild River: see Kobuk Valley National Park.

Salmon, in the Bible. 1 Father of Boaz. An alternate form is Salma. 2 Place, probably the same as Zalmon.

Salmon, river, c.425 mi (680 km) long, rising in many branches in the Sawtooth and the Salmon River mts., central Idaho. It flows northeast and is joined, at Salmon, by the Lemhi River, after which it flows west and is joined by the Middle Fork and the South Fork, then goes north to join the Snake River. The river's canyon, c.1 mi (1.6 km) deep and 10 mi (16.1 km) wide in some places, threads through a wilderness preserve. In 1935 a party sponsored by the National Geographic Society explored the canyon. Though the swift waters and rapids are navigable downstream, it is impossible to return by the water route, thus giving the Salmon the name River of No Return. Salmon travel up the river to spawn.

Chase, Salmon Portland, 1808-73, American public official and jurist, 6th Chief Justice of the United States (1864-73), b. Cornish, N.H. Admitted to the bar in 1829, he defended runaway blacks so often that he became known as "attorney general for fugitive slaves." Chase became prominent in the Liberty party and later in the Free-Soil party and was elected by a coalition of Free-Soilers and antislavery Democrats to the U.S. Senate, where (1849-55) he eloquently opposed such proslavery measures as the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

Chase was elected governor of Ohio in 1855 at the head of a Republican ticket that was dominated by Know-Nothings; by 1857, when he was reelected, he was a leading member of the new Republican party. He was a splendid figure of a man, a "sculptor's ideal of a President," and few Americans have ever gone after that high office with more determination—or less success. He sought the Republican nomination in 1860, but since he lacked the full support of even his own state's delegation and since many considered him an extreme abolitionist, his chance passed quickly.

Again elected to the Senate, Chase served only two days in Mar., 1861, before resigning to become Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury. In that difficult position he took part in framing for Congress the new fiscal legislation necessitated by the Civil War, collected new taxes, placed unprecedentedly large loans with reluctant investors, and directed vast expenditures. To assist in government financing and also to improve the status of the currency, he proposed the national bank system (established in Feb., 1863), which is generally considered his greatest achievement. Ambition and a high regard for his own worth made Chase a difficult man to work with; after refusing four previous attempts, Lincoln finally accepted Chase's resignation on June 29, 1864.

Chase failed in his effort to secure the presidential nomination, but he remained an important national figure, and on Dec. 6, 1864, after the death of Roger B. Taney, Lincoln appointed Chase Chief Justice of the United States. He took a moderate stand in most of the important Reconstruction cases. His dissenting opinion in the Slaughterhouse Cases subsequently became the accepted position of the courts as to the restrictive force of the Fourteenth Amendment. On the other hand, his decision (1870) in Hepburn v. Griswold (see Legal Tender cases) was soon reversed. For his fairness in presiding over the Senate in the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson, he was furiously denounced by his old radical friends. Chase persisted in seeking the presidency, but neither the Democrats in 1868 nor the Liberal Republicans in 1872 were interested in him.

or red salmon

Food fish (Oncorhynchus nerka) of the North Pacific that constitutes almost 20percnt of the commercial fishery of Pacific salmon. It weighs about 6 lbs (3 kg) and lacks distinct spots on the body. It ranges from the northern Bering Sea to Japan and from Alaska to California. Sockeyes may migrate more than 1,000 miles (1,600 km) upriver to spawn in lakes or tributary streams. The young remain in freshwater one to five years. The kokanee is a small, nonmigratory, freshwater subspecies.

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or silver salmon

Species (Oncorhynchus kisutch) of salmon prized for food and sport that ranges from the Bering Sea to Japan and the Salinas River of Monterey Bay, Cal. It weighs about 10 lbs (4.5 kg) and is recognized by the small spots on the back and upper tail-fin lobe. Young cohos stay in freshwater for about one year before entering North Pacific waters; they mature in about three years. Some landlocked populations spend their entire lives in freshwater. Cohos were successfully transplanted in the 1970s into Lake Michigan as a game fish.

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or Mackinaw trout or Great Lakes trout or salmon trout

Large, voracious char (Salvelinus namaycush) found widely from northern Canada and Alaska to New England and the Great Lakes, usually in deep, cool lakes. They are greenish gray and covered with pale spots. In spring, 5-lb (2.3-kg) lake trout are caught in shallow water; in summer, fish of up to 100 lbs (45 kg) are trolled in deep water. Lake trout were virtually eliminated from the Great Lakes by the sea lamprey, which entered through the Welland Canal in the 1930s. They have been introduced in the western U.S., South America, Europe, and New Zealand.

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Name that originally referred to the Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) and now also refers to six species of Pacific salmon (genus Oncorhynchus, family Salmonidae): chum, chinook, pink, and sockeye salmon; coho; and the cherry salmon (O. masu) of Japan. Adult salmon live at sea, then migrate, fighting rapids and leaping high falls, to the stream where they hatched to spawn. Pacific salmon die soon after spawning; many Atlantic salmon live to spawn again. Seealso trout.

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Food fish (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha, family Salmonidae) of the North Pacific that constitutes half of the commercial fishery of Pacific salmon. It weighs about 4.5 lbs (2 kg) and is marked with large, irregular spots. Pink salmon often spawn on tidal flats. The young enter the sea immediately after hatching.

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or dog salmon

Lightly speckled North Pacific fish (Oncorhynchus keta) of the salmon family. The chum salmon ranges from the Mackenzie and Lena rivers in the southern Arctic southward to Japan and the Rogue River. Its weight averages about 10–12 lbs (4.5–5.5 kg). During the autumn spawning season it swims more than 2,000 mi (3,200 km) up the Yukon River.

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(born Jan. 13, 1808, Cornish Township, N.H., U.S.—died May 7, 1873, New York, N.Y.) U.S. antislavery leader and sixth chief justice of the U.S. (1864–73). He practiced law in Cincinnati from 1830, defending runaway slaves and white abolitionists. He led the Liberty Party in Ohio from 1841 and helped found the Free Soil Party (1848) and the Republican Party (1854). He served in the U.S. Senate (1849–55, 1860–61) and was the first Republican governor of Ohio (1855–59). He served as secretary of the treasury under Pres. Abraham Lincoln (1861–64). Appointed chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States by Lincoln, he presided over the impeachment trial of Pres. Andrew Johnson and tried to protect the rights of blacks from infringement by state action.

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