The Web Of Life

Kelp Forest

Fish Grow on Forests and Forests Grow on Fish

Species: Salmon

• Chum, Coho and pinks are the main salmon species found in Gwaii Haanas. There are over 50 spawning streams in Gwaii Haanas.

• Some creeks may have 3,000 Coho returning each year, some may have 50,000, but each creek has a distinct, natural capacity determined by factors such as its width and depth, by the types of gravel or by the heights between pools formed by log jams.

• University of Victoria researchers have found that salmon contain a form of nitrogen (the d15N isotope) that doesn't occur in terrestrial species. This isotope can be tracked throughout the entire forest ecosystem from Sitka spruce to maggots. Marine nutrients are important for the healthy growth and development of many forest plants and animals-making salmon a keystone species of both marine and forest ecosystems.

• For every 4000 eggs laid, only one or two adult salmon return to spawn and begin the cycle again. Eggs are eaten by Dolly Vardens, mergansers, goldeneye and American dippers. Fry are gobbled up by river otters and many birds. Adults are pursued out at sea by seals, orca and humans.

• When the salmon return to spawn and die in the creeks, their bodies are picked clean by scavengers: bald eagles to blowflies and black bear to barnacles. Over winter the carcasses caught in log jams feed the young salmon fry as well as Steller's jay, river otter, marten, northwestern crow, raven, bald eagle and winter wren.

• Eelgrass beds form the nurseries for young chum and pinks, when they leave the creeks in the spring.