The Great Alaska Salmon

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Home | Anatomy of a Salmon | Five Types of Salmon | Fun Activities with Salmon | Where Salmon Live

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Salmon lay their eggs in the fall, in gravel beds in streams 10 to 700 miles from the sea.
 
Eggs hatch into alevins.  They grow rapidly under the gravel for three to four months.  Alevins emerge from the gravel as fry in May and June.
 
When salmon are about an inch long, they are free swimming, and are easy prey for larger fish. 
 
In spring salmon head downstream to the sea. They are called fingerlings during this phase of their lives, and grow up to four inches long. 
 
Salmon go to sea in search of food, feeding on a variety of smaller species. 
 
After spending from six months to six years at sea, adult salmon are drawn back to spawn in the streams where they were hatched. 
 
Salmon stop feeding as they enter fresh water, living on stored body fats.  They return to the calm waters of the spawning river where they were born.

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Salmon are a vital part in the food web, at sea, in costal areas, and inland watersheds.  Scientists are still finding all of the connections salmon have to other living resources in Alaska.  This is why protecting the salmons habitat is so important.

References
 
Jonathan Lyman.  Alaska's Wild Salmon.
Alaska: The Alaska Department of Fish and Game, 2002.