Photo of the Week

We are excited to bring back our Photo of the Week section so stay tuned for new content coming soon! In the meantime, take a look at these fantastic pictures from our teachers.

May 21 was World Fish Migration Day! Many fish species migrate between rivers and oceans– salmon are just the most famous example.

May 23, 2016

Two chum salmon (top and bottom) and a sockeye salmon (middle) collected in the Bering Sea. NOAA Fisheries conducts surveys of juvenile and immature salmon to forecast the number that will return to rivers in Western Alaska.

Photo: Natalie Macke

Salmon are anadromous fish. This simply means, while they spend most of their lives at sea in marine waters, they can and will return to fresh waters of lakes, streams and rivers to spawn. The most tenuous part (in terms of environmental and human impact to the general population) of a salmon’s life seems to be in its juvenile stage (1st year in the ocean). Environmental conditions, availability of food and loss to bycatch by fisheries all have impacted the salmon populations as a whole. Our short term mission here on the Oscar Dyson is to collect data from the salmon caught during our trawls.

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