Sockeye Salmon

The name "sockeye" is an anglicization of suk-kegh (sθə́qəy̓), its name in Halkomelem, the language of the indigenous people along the lower reaches of the Fraser River (one of British Columbia's many native Coast Salish languages). Suk-kegh means "red fish". Nerka is the Russian name for the anadromous form.

The sockeye salmon is sometimes called red or blueback salmon, due to its color. Sockeye are blue tinged with silver in color while living in the ocean. When they return to spawning grounds, their bodies become red and their heads turn green.

The standing wave at the base of each waterfall is the key to their spectacular leaps because it aids in lifting the salmon into the air and allows them to conserve energy.

Salmons are unable to survive out of water. Outside of water, they flop around for a while until eventually they start to suffocate and die. Salmon flip around on their sides.

Salmons have a weakness to weapons that have the Impaling enchantment, which also affects other fish and water/ocean mobs.

Some sockeye salmon populations are completely landlocked. Sockeye that live and reproduce in lakes are commonly called kokanee, which is red-fish name in the Sinixt Interior Salish language and silver trout in the Okanagan language.

Sockeye salmon use patterns of limnetic feeding behavior, which encompasses vertical movement, schooling, diel feeding chronology, and zooplankton prey selectivity. They can change their position in the water column, timing and length of feeding, school formation, and choice of prey to minimize the likelihood of predation. This also ensures they still get at least the minimum amount of food necessary to survive. All of these behaviors contribute to the survivability, and therefore fitness of the salmon. Depending on location and threat of predation, the levels of aggressive feeding behavior can vary.

Sockeye salmon exhibit many different life histories with the majority being anadromous where the juvenile salmon migrate from freshwater lakes and streams to the ocean before returning as adults to their natal freshwater to spawn. Diet in the ocean consists primarily of zooplankton (copepods and euphausiids), but their diet also includes squids and fishes. Natural predators during this period in their life history include Salmon Sharks (Lamna ditropis) and Daggertooth (Anotopterus nikparini). Foraging individuals mix among populations both within and between Asia and North America, but at maturity they all migrate back toward their natal freshwater habitat where they spawn and die. The return to natal habitat and the isolation of spawning populations results in considerable genetic differentiation and adaptation to local conditions. Many fish are intercepted by fishers during the homeward, spawning migration, and natural predators include seals, sea lions and bears. Spawning occurs in late summer and autumn, in lake outlet or lake tributary streams or along lake beaches in finer sediments where subterranean upwelling occurs or among boulders on wave-aerated shores.

River-type Sockeye spawn in river channels not associated with lakes. Adults display bright red bodies and green heads. Males compete with each other for access to females. Females compete with each other for gravel sites where they build nests, deposit eggs (fecundity typically ranges from 2,000–5,000 eggs), and briefly guard the redd. Median population size for the species is ca. 6,000 individuals. Reviews of life history and ecology of the species appear in. At the species level, the population is believed to be stable; however, some subpopulations are declining. 

Aggressive behavior displayed by dominant males is predominantly directed towards intruding dominant males. Sometimes sockeye salmon males behave aggressively towards subordinate males. These encounters are short, with the intruding male leaving after one or two aggressive interactions. Spawning females direct their aggression primarily towards intruding females or other spawning females that are close by. However, they may also direct aggression towards intruding or subordinate males. Aggressive interactions between females only last one or two charges and/or chases. The intruder retreats and the spawning female settles back in her redd. These acts of aggression are important in terms of reproductive success, because they determine the quality of the nest site the female obtains and access to males and aquarium fishes.

Sockeye salmon range as far south as the Columbia River in the eastern Pacific (although individuals have been spotted as far south as the 10 Mile River on the Mendocino Coast of California) and in northern Hokkaidō Island in Japan in the western Pacific. They range as far north as the Bathurst Inlet in the Canadian Arctic in the east and the Anadyr River in Siberia in the west. The farthest inland sockeye salmon travel is to Redfish Lake, Idaho, over 1,400 km (900 mi) by river from the ocean and 2,000 m (6,500 ft) in elevation. In the United States, populations of sockeye salmon have been extirpated from Idaho and Oregon.

• Movement Pattern: Full Migrant

• Individual Type: Solo or Shoaling and Schooling

• Population Trend: Stable

• Population: 6,000,000

• Locomotion: Aquatic

• Habitat: All

• Earth: 

  • Native: Canada (British Columbia, Yukon); Russia (Magadan, Kamchatka, Kuril Is., Khabarovsk); United States (Alaska, Aleutian Is., Washington)

  • Introduced: Japan

  • Extinct: United States (Idaho, Oregon)

The salmon can be tamed in a fish basket used for petting and put in your own artificial lake.

The total registered fisheries harvest of the sockeye in 2010 was some 170,000 tonnes, of which 115,000 tonnes were from the United States and the rest was equally divided between Canada and Russia. This corresponds to some 65 million fish in all, and to some 19% of the harvest of all Pacific salmon species by weight.

See also: 

• Russian: Нерка (Nyerka, nerka, nyarka)

• Italian: Salmone rosso

• French: Saumon rouge

• Spanish: Salmón rojo

• Danish: Rødlaks

• Icelandic: Rauolax

• Haida: Skaagwun, Taaxit

• Heiltsuk: Hísṇ

• Nootka Nuuchahnulth: Hisit, Miòat

• Tsimshian: Gyi'aL, Musoo, Ts'üwaas, Ts'üwaasmmüsoo

• Alutiiq: Niklliq

• Salish: K'wit'thet

• Coming soon

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sockeye_salmon

• https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/135301/4071001

• https://www.fishbase.ca/summary/243

• https://www.fishbase.ca/ComNames/CommonNamesList.php?ID=243&GenusName=Oncorhynchus&SpeciesName=nerka&StockCode=257

• https://www.azquotes.com/quote/261446?ref=salmon

• https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/fish/how-do-salmon-make-it-upstream/#:~:text=The%20secret%20to%20their%20dramatic,them%20to%20save%20precious%20energy.

• https://www.deviantart.com/ognimdo2002/art/Sockeye-salmon-876240385