Atlantic salmon

Atlantic or noble salmon is a salmon fish that occupies a vast range in the North Atlantic, the western part of the Arctic Ocean. Salmon fish is traditionally a favorite fish for residents of Russia and many other countries, who have come up with many different salmon dishes. The wild salmon population has been severely undermined by overfishing and human impacts on the environment. In a number of regions, questions even arise: is there salmon in the river? For this reason, throughout the world and in Russia in particular, salmon farming is developing to replenish the wild population and growing salmon into commercial fish and other types of aquaculture. It is necessary to take a closer look at what kind of fish salmon is, what salmon fish looks like, and much more; read to the end, it will be interesting.

Content

• What family of fish does salmon belong to?
• What does salmon look like?
• Is salmon sea or river fish, what is the lifestyle of salmon?
• Is salmon sea or river fish?
• Where does salmon live in Russia and the world?
• Lifestyle of salmon in the river
• Smoltification of salmon
• Size, weight and age of salmon
• At what age does salmon become sexually mature?
• Lifestyle of salmon fish in the sea
  
• When and how does salmon spawn?
  
• Spawning migrations of salmon
  
• Salmon rivers
  
• Where are salmon spawning grounds located?
  
• When salmon go to spawn in rivers
  
• How does salmon spawn?
  
• Salmon fertility
  
• Do salmon die after spawning?
  

What family of fish does salmon belong to?

What kind of fish does salmon belong to? Salmon fish Latin name Salmo salar or Atlantic salmon.
What family of fish does salmon belong to? Salmon is a type of fish that belongs to the Salmon family - Salmonidae.
What family of fish is salmon found in Europe and North America? Based on the study of biochemical data, it was found that there are differences and a lack of gene exchange between American and European salmon, therefore it was proposed that Europe and North America are inhabited by different subspecies of salmon, Salmo salar salar and Salmo Americanus, respectively.
Within individual salmon populations, red fish forms ecological races, which are characterized by genetically fixed persistent morphological features.
The closest relatives of the fish of the salmon family are brown trout.

What does salmon look like?

So, what does salmon look like? The salmon fish has a fusiform body, it has a large terminal mouth and a long maxillary bone, this bone extends beyond the vertical of the posterior edge of the eye. In mature male salmon, a hook can be observed at the anterior end of the lower jaw, which fits into the notch of the upper jaw.
Adult salmon have strong teeth, but juveniles have weak teeth.
The tail fin of salmon has a notch, just like all salmon fish, salmon has an adipose fin.
Salmon fish has medium-sized scales; 100-150 scales can be counted in the lateral line.
In the salmon fish, you can see spots on the body that are X-shaped. On the body of salmon below the lateral line, as a rule, there are no spots, or very few spots. In salmon, the appearance of the fish changes when it enters the river.
What does salmon look like in the sea? In adult salmon fish, during the marine period of life, the back has a greenish or blue color, its sides are silver in color, and its belly is white.
What does salmon look like during the spawning period? In individuals during the spawning period, the body color becomes dark with a bronze tint, sometimes the body has red spots, and dark-colored fins.
Juvenile salmon have a dark body color with 11-12 transverse spots.
Salmon fish description for fish farmers can be supplemented with the following - in the transverse row you can count 11-15 (16) scales from the end of the adipose fin to the lateral line. Salmon has 17-24 gill rakers; there are no tuberculate rakers.
Red salmon is a very large fish and can reach a length of 150 cm and a weight of 40 kg.

Is salmon sea or river fish, what is the lifestyle of salmon?

Is salmon sea or river fish?

The question often arises: is salmon a freshwater fish or a saltwater fish?
Salmon is a typical anadromous fish. The first period of salmon’s life takes place in the river, where spawning takes place; the young grow and develop in the first years of life. It should be noted that in some lakes a residential form of salmon is formed, and dwarf male salmon also remain in rivers, which do not slide into the sea, but live continuously in the river.
So we can say that salmon is a river fish.
But salmon is also a sea fish. Having rolled from the river into the sea, salmon undergoes a process of smoltification, when the fish’s body is reconstructed and salmon from a river fish becomes a sea fish.
Salmon stays at sea for 1-4 years, making long migrations to the shores of Greenland. Salmon return to the river to spawn.
Salmon spawning is described in detail in a separate article.

Where does salmon live in Russia and the world?

 

Where does salmon live? The European subspecies of salmon Salmo salar salar Linnaeus, 1758 consists of three ecological forms; the main difference between the ecological forms is the characteristics of the habitat in the feeding parts of the salmon range.
In what water does salmon live, fresh or sea? The habitat of salmon as a migratory fish is divided into reproductive and feeding areas. The reproductive part of the salmon range is confined to mountain and semi-mountain rivers, and the feeding part of the salmon range is confined to the North Atlantic and the eastern part of the Arctic Ocean, the relatively closed waters of the Baltic Sea and continental lakes.
The North Atlantic form of salmon includes numerous populations that breed in the rivers of Northern and Western Europe from Portugal in the west to the river. Kara in the east. North Atlantic salmon lives and feeds in the Arctic Ocean, North Atlantic and associated marginal seas.
In the Baltic ecological form, the constituent populations of salmon live and feed in the brackish Baltic Sea and, where to reproduce, they enter the rivers flowing into the sea, without leaving the borders of the Baltic. It is the Baltic form of salmon that is found in the rivers of the Baltic states and Belarus.
The lacustrine ecological form includes populations of salmon living and feeding in a number of large lakes in the Leningrad region, Karelia, Finland, and Sweden. In Russia, there are residential populations of salmon in Lake Imandra, the system of lakes Kuito (Upper, Middle and Lower), Nyukozero, and in lakes Vygozero, Kamennoe, Segozero, Yanisyarvi, Sandal, Ladoga and Onega. Lake salmon populations breed in rivers that belong to the basins of each major lake.
It can be considered that all three ecological forms have fairly clearly defined boundaries of the salmon habitat.

Lifestyle of salmon in the river

Is salmon a river fish or does all salmon become sea fish? After the salmon larvae emerge from the spawning hill, which happens at the end of winter or early spring, they settle throughout the entire area of the river that is suitable for their habitat, while the larvae that emerged later begin to fight with the larvae that settled in the river earlier. Young-of-the-year salmon typically select areas with shallow currents, depths, and fine-grained soil; generally, such areas are usually located in the coastal zone. Older juveniles settle throughout the river with a more powerful current.
We eat and boulder-pebble soils.
Juveniles up to 160 mm in size have 7-13 transverse stripes on their sides, between them a round red spot can be seen; on the head of the fry behind the eye there are 3 round spots; on the body of the fry there are round spots that are scattered like on an adult; there are dark spots on the dorsal fin.
In the river, juveniles usually feed on insect larvae. Juvenile salmon stand motionless at the bottom, being under a turbulent flow, so their protective coloring camouflages them well from predators, while the water flow carries food. Salmon is a salmon fish with its head in the direction of the flow, and makes only short throws for food. The biotopes of juvenile salmon, as a rule, do not coincide with the biotopes of brown trout and other fish.
Salmon fish exhibits great lability in relation to the length of stay in the river.
The lifespan of salmon in a river can vary - from 1 to 7 years, but for the most part it is 2 - 4 years, which depends on the latitude where the river is located.

 

 

Salmon smoltification

How salmon becomes a sea fish. Upon reaching a certain size, the salmon fish conducts downstream or catadromous migration to the sea. During the transition to the marine period of life, the fish’s body undergoes complex physiological processes aimed at adapting to a hyperosmotic environment.
The body color gradually changes to silver, which is characteristic of adult individuals. The body shape of salmon becomes more slender, and the intensity of metabolic processes increases by approximately 30% compared to parr. In the body of salmon fish, during smoltification, a functional change occurs in the osmoregulation system. At this time, the juveniles are called silverfish or smolts. Smoltification of salmon usually occurs in spring and summer. Salmon smoltification occurs in four stages: parr, parr with signs of silvering, silver parr and silver parr.
At the parr stage, the fish develop a silvery sheen on individual scales, the abdomen acquires a greenish tint, and black dotted pigmentation is visible.
At the parr stage with signs of silvering, a silvery coloration becomes noticeable throughout the body, pigmentation on the abdomen disappears, but remains on the sides.
At the silver parr stage, the black dotted pigmentation completely disappears, the belly of the fish becomes white, and the gray paired fins acquire a dark border.
At the silverfish stage, the body has an intense silver color, the belly is white, the paired fins are gray and have a dark border. At this stage, the salmon’s motor activity increases, resistance to salinity increases, and the instinct to stingray into the sea is clearly expressed.
The degree of silvering of juvenile salmon from different rivers varies. If a river flows into a sea with high salinity, then salmon fish with a silvery coloration migrate, and from a river that flows into desalinated areas of the sea, individuals at the silver parr stage with varying degrees of silvering may well migrate. During catadromous migration, salmon smolts are eaten in large numbers by fish-eating birds and predatory fish, especially brown trout, pike and cod.
After migration, the salmon fish stays in the estuarine zone for some time, where it begins to feed intensively and grow. After a few weeks, when salmon smolts have fully adapted to the marine environment, they begin to swim to their main feeding grounds. Thus, salmon becomes a sea fish.

 

Lifestyle of salmon fish in the sea

Salmon is a sea fish or how salmon behaves in the sea. Salmon fish can migrate over a very significant distance, up to 3800 - 3900 km.
In the seas around Greenland, in the Labrador Sea and the Irminger Sea, salmon from Europe and North America gather for feeding. The feeding of salmon comes from the rivers of the White and Barents Sea basins and takes place in the North Atlantic seas: Norwegian, Northern, Irminger, Greenland, Labrador.
The main feeding grounds for salmon are located in the southern part of Norway, in the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland.
Is salmon a predatory fish or not? Salmon is a predatory fish; in the sea, salmon feeds on small fish, mainly sand lance, capelin, herring, sprat, herring, three-spined stickleback, smelt, and salmon also feeds on crustaceans.
When Salmon reach sexual maturity, adult Salmon fish conduct an anadromous migration.
Red salmon is characterized by very high homing. Therefore, the salmon population from each river represents a separate genetic population. Only a small part of salmon fish (3 - 4%) enter other rivers, and not those from which they rolled into the sea, and this is more related to the water level in the rivers.

Size, weight and age of salmon

The size and weight of salmon redfish varies greatly depending on the location of the river. The maximum size of salmon can reach 150 cm and a fish weight of 38 kg.
How long does salmon live? The maximum age of salmon fish is 13 years, but most often the age of salmon is determined to be 5-6 years.
Lake salmon in Lake Ladoga can reach 57 cm in length and weigh 10 kg, with The maximum age of salmon is 10 years.
In Onega and Pechora, the salmon fish reaches an average weight of 7.5-8.8 kg, in the Ponoy and Varzuga rivers it reaches a weight of 4.2-4.7 kg.
At what age does salmon become sexually mature?
At what age does salmon become sexually mature? The maturation of salmon occurs unevenly and ranges between the ages of 2+ and 7+ years, and dwarf males can become sexually mature already at the age of 1+. As a rule, most salmon fish reach maturity after one year of sea feeding, in more rare cases after two to three years. Individuals of salmon that become sexually mature after 4 years of life at sea are quite rare. Often the salmon fish spends much longer in the sea and enters the river only after reaching 4-6 years and weighing 6-8 kg.
 

When and how does salmon spawn?

Salmon is one of the largest salmon, reaching a length of up to 1.5 m and a weight of up to 39 kg, and is a valuable commercial object, so it is important to know how salmon spawning occurs in order to organize reproduction and subsequently commercial cultivation of valuable fish. In this article we will look at how salmon spawn, in which rivers salmon spawn, when and how salmon spawn, and a lot of other useful information, read to the end - it will be interesting.

Spawning migrations of salmon

Salmon have a well-developed homing effect, that is, the fish returns to the same area where it was born and rolled into the river. At the same time, salmon may well enter not the river where it hatched from eggs, but into a nearby one, thereby expanding its range and occupying those rivers where it disappeared for some reason.
Salmon from the rivers of the Kola Peninsula feed in the area of Western Finnmarken, in the open part of the Norwegian Sea, in the Faroe Islands, and the anadromous migration routes of salmon run along Norway and the Kola Peninsula. When passing the throat of the White Sea, the salmon moves closer to the Zimny coast of the Arkhangelsk region, then it crosses the White Sea at the throat or to the south and approaches the mouths of its native rivers.

Salmon rivers

Salmon rivers - salmon spawning rivers - are divided into two types: salmon rivers that do not have barriers that would significantly affect the movement of salmon upstream, and salmon rivers that have natural or artificial barriers that prevent or complicate the spawning migration of salmon upstream of the river.
In salmon rivers that have waterfalls, most salmon producers, after entering the river, settle for a long time in the lower section. Salmon producers begin to overcome the waterfall only when the water temperature reaches 7-8°C and the water level is close to low-water.
In the Russian North in the Murmansk and Arkhangelsk regions and Karelia there are approximately 113 rivers for salmon spawning. In large rivers, such as the Mezen, Northern Dvina, and Pechora, there are second-order salmon spawning rivers and their tributaries.
Large salmon spawning rivers on the Murmansk coast are Pechenga, Bolshaya Zapadnaya Litsa, Ura, Tuloma, Kola, Yokanga.
Large salmon spawning rivers on the Tersky coast are Ponoy, Varzuga, Umba.
Large salmon spawning rivers on the Karelian coast are Keret, Kem, Vyg.
Large salmon spawning rivers on the eastern shore of the White Sea are Onega, Northern Dvina, Kuloi, Mezen.
Large salmon spawning rivers in the Czech and Pechora basins are Indiga, Wolonga, and Pechora.
The spawning migration of salmon in rivers can be very long, so the migration of salmon from the mouth of the Pechora to the spawning grounds is a distance of 1100 km; the fish completes such a migration within approximately one month.

Where are salmon spawning grounds located?

 

Salmon occupies a fairly extensive habitat. In Russia, salmon go to spawn in the rivers of the Murmansk coast, in the rivers of the White Sea, in the Pechora River, and in the rivers of the Baltic Sea.
Feeding mainly takes place in the sea, where the main source of food for it is schooling fish - gerbil and herring. But salmon travels to rivers to spawn.
Salmon spawning grounds are located in the upper and middle reaches of the river in rapids areas, usually on rifts that are adjacent to the shore.
Salmon spawning grounds can be divided into two types according to the nature of their feeding and hydrological regime:

• salmon spawning grounds with spring feeding, where water temperature is high in winter (1-3 0C), with short-term ice cover,
• spawning grounds for salmon without springs, where the water temperature in winter is approximately 0 0C and there is stable ice cover.

On salmon spawning grounds of the first type, juveniles emerge from the spawning mounds earlier, but at the same time, the juveniles grow more slowly than on spawning grounds of the second type. The most powerful natural spawning grounds for salmon are the Umba, Shuya, Neva, and Kem rivers.
In the beds of large rivers, two types of areas can be distinguished that are used by salmon for laying spawning mounds: core and coastal. On guard Neva, which is the most typical case, salmon eggs during the spawning period are laid on the fairway of the riverbed in the upper part of the threshold in the area of the water drainage triangle. In the coastal area for spawning, salmon uses the shallows of coastal areas and islands, which are located in the rapids zone.
Spawning areas of the “core” and “coastal” types differ in the mechanical composition of the soil, flow speeds and water depth. In the coastal shallows it contains more sand and gravel; in the coastal areas the current speed is significantly reduced.
In spawning areas of both types, a prerequisite is a positive slope of the bottom to the direction of the current.
In such areas, the eggs are not carried beyond the spawning mound: the eggs are “sucked” by the current into the inter-pebble space of the spawning mound. It is in core-type spawning areas that bottom ice does not form during autumn ice events.

When salmon go to spawn in rivers

Salmon is characterized by a division into two races: spring and winter; these races enter rivers with sexual products at different stages of development.
Salmon go to spawn in rivers in the summer. In June-July, large spring salmon, which is also called closing or low-water season, begins to fish. These fish have well-developed reproductive products.
In mid-July, small salmon, also called tinda or blue salmon, go to the rivers to spawn; as a rule, these are males that have matured in the sea in one year. Spring salmon spawns in the same year in which it enters the rivers.
In the fall, the migration of large winter salmon, also called autumn salmon, or salmon salmon, with underdeveloped reproductive products, begins. Together with it, the leafhopper enters the river; this is a small winter form, which consists of males and females that live in the sea for one year. Winter salmon spend the winter in rivers and spawn only in the fall of the following year. A small number of autumn salmon do not have time to enter the rivers before the freeze-up; they overwinter in the areas near the mouth and enter the rivers only after the ice freezes. This kind of salmon is called chilled salmon.
When salmon goes to spawn, the salmon does not feed in the river during the spawning period.

How does salmon spawn?

 

During the spawning period of salmon, it is characterized by clearly expressed sexual dimorphism. Before spawning, salmon darkens. In male salmon, red spots appear on the sides of the body and gill covers, the skin thickens and becomes rough, the lower jaw lengthens and a cartilaginous hook develops at the tip of the jaw, which fits into a corresponding notch at the end of the upper jaw. Another distinctive feature of the male is its large body size, which prevails over the body size of the female.
As mentioned above, salmon spawning takes place on salmon spawning grounds in the upper reaches of rivers in rapids areas with sandy and pebbly soil. The current speed at salmon spawning grounds is 0.4-1.5 m/sec.
Thus, on the spawning grounds of Ladoga salmon, the current speed was 0.4-0.45 m/sec. Lake salmon spawns at a depth of 0.15-2 m.
At salmon spawning grounds, males arrive earlier than females.
Salmon spawning, as a rule, begins at a water temperature of 6-8 0C, and ends when the water cools to 0-2 0C; spawning lasts approximately one month.
The spawning time of salmon in the rivers of the Russian North, as a rule, occurs from mid-September and ends in the first ten days of October. Depending on climatic conditions, the spawning time of salmon can shift by a decade. In the upper reaches of the Pechora, in some years, salmon finish spawning in late autumn already under the ice.
During the spawning period of salmon, the female, having chosen a place on the spawning ground, cleans the pebbly soil from silt with the flapping of her fins, then digs a salmon spawning nest. To do this, she digs a spawning hole, lays eggs in it and forms a spawning mound of an elongated oval shape. In terms of size, the spawning hill of salmon, in which the eggs are laid, is on average 4.7 - 5.3 m in length, on average 1.3 m in width, and about 15 cm in height. The depth of the spawning hole does not exceed 10 cm.
Even in small rivers where spawning areas are very small, when laying eggs, female salmon do not destroy the mound built by another female. The mounds may be close to each other, the nests may touch or partially overlap the edges, but the spawning pits, as a rule, do not overlap each other.
The minimum temperature during the development of salmon eggs, depending on the type of spawning ground, can be from 0.1-3 0C.

Salmon fertility

How many eggs are in salmon? Salmon is characterized by absolute fertility, varying from 4.4 to 26.5 thousand eggs. The working fertility of a female salmon is 9 thousand eggs. How many eggs are in salmon also depends on the river where the salmon is found.

• Fertility of salmon from the Varzuga River, in females 60 cm long - 4.8-6.4 thousand eggs,
• The fertility of salmon from the Ponoe River is 8 thousand eggs,
• The fertility of salmon from the Kolvice River is 8.5 thousand eggs,
• The fertility of salmon from the Voronya River is 12.5 thousand eggs,
• The fertility of salmon from the Onega River is 19 thousand eggs.

What does salmon caviar look like?

Mature salmon eggs are distinguished by their large sizes, which are larger than all other salmon fish. At the lake Ladoga salmon caviar size reaches 7.9 mm.
The weight of salmon caviar is different and varies widely and ranges from 80 to 150 mg, and for Baltic salmon it is 100-210 mg.
Salmon caviar has a bright orange color, which is due to the high content of carotenoid pigments (astaxanthin, lutein and zeaxanthin).

Do salmon die after spawning?

Do salmon die after spawning? Unlike Pacific salmon, salmon does not die after spawning. However, not every fish can spawn several times. Salmon does not feed during the spawning period, and it has to cover enormous distances, overcome obstacles and waterfalls. Therefore, weakened salmon die after spawning, but strong salmon survive after spawning. The majority of the surviving salmon after spawning roll into the sea in the spring during high water, a small part of the salmon after spawning rolls into the sea in the fall, another part remains in the river for another year and only then rolls into the sea. After feeding in the sea, the salmon goes to spawn again.