Spawning Adults – fish returning to home waters undergo extreme physical and physiological changes
Male – provides milt (sperm) to nested eggs; intensely competes with other males; extreme spawning transformations (colorations, hunched backs, canine-like teeth, hooked jaws (kype)
Female – build nests (redd) by turning sideways using tail; multiple nests, multiple mates, typically remains at redd site, guarding/tending/waiting for next mate
Mating – pairing of male and female for the purpose of spawning which results in viable fertilized eggs
Nest – Redd – females lay about 3000 eggs in multiple nests with multiple mates
Death – in the Pipers system, fish die within about 10 days of returning to their freshwater home waters; females must find both a suitable gravelly zone and a mate
Renewal – decomposing fish feed scavenging animals, bacteria, fungi, small plants, trees
Chum salmon – common name from the word tzum, a Chinook language term that means “spotted” or “marked”
Dog salmon – common name from the reference to spawners that develop extreme canine-like teeth
Oncorhynchus keta – scientific name for Chum Salmon
Anadromous fishes that hatch and spend a juvenile period in freshwater. This is followed by migration to and maturation in the ocean. Adult fish then migrate back up rivers—”anadromous” means “upward-running”—in order to reproduce in freshwater habitats. The length of the initial freshwater period and of the oceanic period vary greatly by species. Similarly, the length of the migration can vary tremendously. Some species travel hundreds of kilometers between their marine habitat and their breeding grounds, while others migrate only a short distance upstream from brackish water to reach freshwater spawning grounds.
