© Tavish Campbell.
Why restore wild salmon?
Wild salmon are an essential species. Their abundancy is good for the planet.
A perfectly engineered species, wild salmon have the ability to sustain themselves while feeding more than 100 species around them. From the moment salmon eggs leave the female body, they provide sustenance for fish, bird, mammal, insect and plant life.
- Wild salmon have adapted to fill every accessible freshwater habitat on BC’s coast, feeding an entire terrestrial food chain year-round.
- Salmon are one of British Columbia’s climate stabilizers – feeding coastal forests that produce oxygen and pull carbon from the atmosphere.
- Wild salmon have an enormous capacity for rapid-evolution, ensuring them the chance of surviving a changing climate.
Supporting an abundance of species
- Young pink and chum salmon head to sea immediately after hatching. As millions line the shores on the downriver journey, kingfishers, mergansers and blue herons feed them to their nestlings. Young fry also provide food for yearling Coho and Chinook salmon migrating to the open ocean.
- Chinook, Coho and sockeye salmon remain a year or more in the rivers and lakes, feeding on insects and smaller fish. These young fish are food for resident trout and birds.
- All five Pacific species of salmon feed sharks, whales, sea lions, eagles and many other species in the open ocean.
- As they surge home in pulses from June to November, salmon runs support human communities, economies and cultures. Wilderness tourism in BC, valued at $1.4-billion, is based on bears and whales that depend on wild salmon.