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Saturday 14 October 2017

Salmon

Salmon is the common name for several species of ray-finned marine or freshwater fish in the family Salmonidae. Other fish in the same family include trout grayling and whitefish.

Atlantic salmon

Salmon are native to tributaries of the North Atlantic (genus Salmo) and Pacific Ocean (genus Oncorhynchus). Many species of salmon have been introduced into non-native environments such as the Great Lakes of North America and Patagonia in South America.

The Atlantic salmon has a sense of smell a thousand times better than a dog's.

Adult Atlantic salmon are excellent jumpers. In fact, that's how they got their name. In Latin, salmon means "the leaper," as they have the ability to jump up to 12 feet out of the water.

LIFE CYCLE

The salmon spawning season is between September and January although they occasionally spawn at other times. The orange eggs, about 6 mm/0.in in diameter, are laid on the river bed, fertilized by the male, and then covered with gravel by the female. The incubation period is from five weeks to five months.

Spawning sockeye salmon in Becharof Creek, Becharof Wilderness, Alaska

The young hatched salmon are known as alevins, and when they begin feeding they are called parr.

At about two years old, the salmon's coat becomes silvery, and they are then known as smolts.

Folklore has it that the fish return to the exact spot in the freshwater streams where they were born; tracking studies have shown this to be mostly true.

Depending on the species, salmon may spend up to four years at sea before returning to their home streams to spawn (at this stage called grilse), often overcoming great obstacles to get there and die.

FARMING

Salmon are intensively farmed in many parts of the world. It is a major contributor to the world production of farmed finfish, representing about US$10 billion annually.

Salmon aquaculture is especially significant in Canada, Chile, Norway and Scotland.

Salmon are increasingly “farmed” in open-net cages, which have low production costs.

Rainbow trout farm in an archipelago of Finland. By Plenz 

Another form of salmon production, which is safer but less controllable, is to raise salmon in hatcheries. Once independent, they are released into rivers in an attempt to increase the salmon population. They are then caught when they return to spawn. This system is referred to as ranching. However, it argued that stocking rivers indiscriminately with hatchery fish may destroy the precision of the salmon's homing instinct by interbreeding between those originating in different rivers.

SALMON IN HISTORY

Westminster Abbey in London is built close to where a vision of St Peter is said to have been seen on the Thames by a salmon fisherman named Edric. The Fishermen’s Company offers a salmon to Westminster Abbey each year in memory of this.

In 1825 Ezra Daggett and Thomas Kensett of New York City patented a canning process to preserve salmon and other seafood.

As a child, David Lloyd George poached salmon. Later as a solicitor, he gained a reputation for his defence of poachers.

Water quality has steadily improved in the River Thames since sewers were repaired in the 1960s, and a salmon was caught in the River Thames on November 12, 1974, the first seen in the 20th century. The river is now home to wild salmon,


SALMON AS FOOD

You can cook salmon in the dishwasher. Wrap your salmon tightly in foil and put your dishwasher on the highest and hottest cycle for a perfectly poached salmon.


The Japanese considered raw salmon dangerous, since Pacific salmon was prone to parasites. When Norway found it had too much salmon the Norwegians decided to focus on teaching Japanese consumers that Atlantic salmon was safe to eat raw. It took ten years for Salmon sushi/sashimi to finally become popular.

Salmon is technically a white fish. Farmed salmon gets that reddish pink color only because farmers add in a pigmenting compound to the fishes' food that changes the color of their flesh, which is more appealing to consumers.

AquAdvantage salmon was the first genetically modified animal approved by the US FDA for human consumption.

Source Hutchinson Encyclopedia

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