Pacific Salmon Essay

There are 7 different species of salmon that can be found in the Pacific Ocean, each species has a unique appearance and has different habitats but they share many characteristics. Salmon are also a very unique species, they are anadromous, meaning that their eggs are laid and hatch in freshwater, and their youth spend some of their early lives there in freshwater before swimming to the ocean to grow and mature. Pacific salmon spawn only once and dies within days of digging their nest and mating. Their bodies will float down the stream and decompose, filling the water will nutrients for other species and plants as food. Both live and dead salmons plays an important food source for birds, such as eagles and gulls and mammals, such as bears. In one way or the other, salmon plays a big role in the ecosystem, which leads us to discover more about the threats to the pacific salmon stocks.
There are many factors of human induced that greatly affect the quality and the quantity of salmon stocks. For example, water storage, withdrawal, conveyance, the diversions for agriculture, flood control, domestic and lastly hydropower purposes like dams, this examples have greatly affect and reduced or eliminated the habitat and resulted indirectly entrainment the mortality of pacific salmon stocks. The modification of natural flow regimes or system have resulted an increased in water temperature, changed the fish community structure, depleted flows for migration, rearing, spawning, gravel recruitment, flushing sediments from spawning gravels and the transportation of large woody debris, such as fallen dead trees and the remains of large branches. Hydropower purposes like dams, turbines and sluiceways have also resulted in an increased of mortality of both adults and youth of pacific