Pacific herring (© Alexandra Morton)

HERRING

Where there's herring there's hope

In February tiny bubbles form a sheen on the water's surface. This is the first hint of spring - the return of the herring. Herring rise to the surface at dusk to feed and then dive deeper at dawn to escape surface predators. As they rise and fall they must adjust their air-bladders and so release the bubbles. Ripe with eggs the herring head into traditional spawning grounds in March. Historically, herring spawned over 258 kilometers of coastline, but today they use much smaller specific sites. Scientists wonder if there are simply no elders among the herring to lead younger generations to the old places.

As the herring coalesce in passages and inlets the Archipelago wakes. Iwama the humpback whale has her inner clock set for a date with the herring banquet in March. Chinook salmon from the entire coast of British Columbia and into Washington State sweep powerful tails up Knight and Kingcome Inlet in hot pursuit of spawn rich herring. In turn the Steller sea lions follow the salmon and herring. Eve's family - the killer whales of "A" pod arrive, as well, to feed on the herring rich chinook salmon. Eagles clasp talons full of herring eating them in mid-air to ease the hunger pangs of winter. As the moon rounds into a March full moon the herring spawn coating kilometers of shoreline with layer after layer of eggs. The sperm streaks the deep green water pale white. Herring gulls thinking about laying a clutch of eggs paddle luxuriously along the steep walls of rock weed encrusted with the calorie-rich herring roe. The eggs hatch in ten days.

Herring require 2-4 years to mature. They don't die after spawning and can producing increasing numbers of eggs up to 38,000 annually by their eighth year. In an ocean allowed to continue its natural processes the fish return year after year leading the youngsters the places herring eggs can still survive. Where there is herring there is hope for all marine life.

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Wild coho salmon (© Alexandra Morton)

SALMON

Salmon are a generous species. From the moment the translucent pink eggs leave their mother's bodies they sustain the life around them beginning with freshwater trout, birds and insects. Two species of salmon - pinks and chums - go to sea immediately after hatching. These tender young fry feed the yearling coho as they all migrate towards the sea. Chinook, coho and sockeye all spend a year or more in freshwater, feeding on insects. Each spring millions of young salmon darken the shorelines heading out into the Pacific gyre. Kingfishers, mergansers and blue herons feed the tiny salmon to their nestlings.

Pink salmon mature the fastest requiring only two years from egg to adult, but the other species spend longer, 3 - 7 years, collecting nutrients of the open ocean. Pink salmon, chum salmon and sockeye feed low on the food chain foraging in the plankton layer (this combined with the short life-span makes pink salmon of the most pollutant-free proteins on earth). Coho and chinook are fish predators. During their life at sea the vast shoals of silver salmon feed sharks, dolphins and many other species. As eggs and sperm ripen inner signals steer the salmon home. Miraculously, salmon can find the exact stretch of gravel they were spawned in, probably by taste.

Wild chinook salmon (© Alexandra Morton)

The rich product of millions of square miles of surface ocean photosynthesis is stored in the pink flesh of the Pacific salmon. Travelling in schools larger than herds of wildebeest or caribou, salmon feed whales, sea lions, eagles and human communities as they surge home in pulses from June through November. Then in the most extraordinary living weave of life, salmon carry ocean energy up into the coastal mountains as they return to spawn. The size of salmon runs can be read from the width of growth rings in trees. The bears, wolves, ravens, and many other species contribute to this process by dragging spawned out salmon carcasses deep into the forest as they fatten up to survive the winter. In return the trees cool the streams with their canopy shade and meter out the rainfall preventing flash-floods and mudslides from killing the salmon. The phosphorous from pink salmon has been traced to the crowning glaciers in the flesh of mountain goats. The salmon carcasses left in and near the river feed the insects that will nourish the young salmon that emerge from the gravel the following spring.

All five species of salmon select slightly different habitat - gravel of different sizes, varying speed of stream flow, lakes, glacial meltwater, deep pools, shallow riffles etc. to ensure maximum production from every creek. The consecutive annual runs of each species ebb and surge to give the rivers a rest. Historically salmon runs were so huge they actually raised the water level of small streams with their arrival. Salmon are a gift to all life of the Pacific.

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