Sammy the Salmon

You are a Chinook Salmon. You wiggle energetically from your egg becoming an alevin. Small and curious, you spend the next few months in the dark gravel near where you were born. You notice a yolk sack attached to your belly which makes you awkward and slow and in no way safe from predators. Yet, this yolk sac also nourishes you until you are able to grow teeth and a digestive system. Soon your yolk sac disappears and you rapidly vibrate your tail to emerge from the gravel and drift downstream looking for food. You spend your days eating on insects and hiding in the shade. It is dangerous in the open water. Luckily, you develop parr marks to camouflage yourself for survival. Finally, the day comes and you are a smolt and ready to move into the estuary down-stream from your nesting home. Your brilliant and shining silver scales glisten in the sunlight. Overhead, a majestic bald eagle notices you sparkling in the water. The great raptor swoops down and goes in for the kill with his powerful talons outstretched! Luckily, you are faster. You sense the bird of prey approaching, with your lateral line. Your sturdy fins burst into action and send you quickly into the safety of the reeds. As you catch your breath you whisper to yourself, “Whew…that was close!” “You don’t know how lucky you are!” said a grumpy voice from nearby. “Whaatttt? Who said that?” You reply looking all around you. “Over here…” The voice answers. “Where?” You ask looking up and down feeling even less sure. “Here!” You look and look and look and you still cannot see anyone. You are about to swim away when you hear the voice again. “Down here buddy” Beneath the eel grass a small tube protrudes out from the mud. “Are YOU the voice?” you ask the strange looking tube. “Yep it’s me, Geo-Geo, the gooey duck.” With this came a spit of salt water from the tube. “You’re gunna die, ya’ know.” Geo pauses, then continues. “I see it each year. You little ones hatch, play in the water, get big, the birds come and eat, and if it’s not the birds then it will be the bear.” Your eyes get big and you wait to see what else this strange organism will say. “Yep. No chance at all. If you make it passed the birds and bear and out to the sea, the orca and seals are waiting for you and don’t forget there are the fishermen! Not to mention all the development and dredging going on here. Yeah, you’re lucky your nest even held up over the winter flooding. You just don’t stand a chance, errrr…….what’s your name again?” “I, I, I never told you my name...” You stammer, taken aback by the mollusk’s candid remarks. “I’m Sammy the Salmon. I’m on my way out to sea to grow big and strong.” You look at the tube again. “How do you know so much anyway?” “I live a sedentary life. I just sit around and wait for my food to float by me. I get to observe the goings on of the estuary year after year after year, I’m 94 years old. That is a lot of sitting and a lot of observing”. Even if you do make it to sea and come back you’ll die anyway. It’s just the way it goes” Worried now, you shakily state “Weeellllllll, Iiii’ll bebeeee fffiiiine, with my lateral line, sturdy fins and streamlined body I can out swim any fish or fowl.” Your tail is swishing back and forth with worry. “Have it your way, buddy, -born, -eat, -die.” Geo said and his neck disappeared into the mud. You don’t think about Geo much after that. You make your way out to sea just fine, eating smaller fish and swimming at times with other salmon along the channels of Puget Sound. Then one fall, you feel a change, an urge to return home to your nesting ground. You have eaten all summer and have become an even stronger swimmer than ever before. The other salmon you are swimming with are getting restless too. One especially humid autumn night you and the others began to return to the estuary where you were born. Along the way, hundreds of people line the river bank with fishing equipment. You are not afraid of humans, as they were in boats all over the Puget Sound every day. You notice an especially beautiful little fish right in front of you and you snap it up in one gulp. “OW!” You screech. You have been hooked. Pulling and swimming as hard as your sturdy fins can go you swim but the hook was held fast in your mouth. You are slowly reeled onto shore by a fisherman and a small boy. “Holden! Look we caught an adult salmon!! The man said. He looks at you for a moment and continues. “Oh, no, he’s a spawner. We need to release him.” “What does that mean dad?” the boy asked, poking at you with a stick. “We have to let him go, son. Chinook are endangered and we need to let this guy go, and finish his work so we can have more salmon in the coming years.” The man rubs the boy on his head. You lay on the beach wriggling and flopping and gasping for water. The man reaches over and gently pulls the hook out of your mouth and carefully lowers you back into the water. “There you go Spawner! Finish your work! We all need you!” shouted Holden as you quickly swim into the depths of the estuary. “That was a close one.” said a grumpy voice behind him. “You’re telling me! I was almost someone’s dinner!” You exclaim. “You were almost someone’s dinner twice now if I remember correctly” The Voice replied. “Who’s saying that? Who are you?” You ask, exhausted from the recent events. “Don’t you remember me? Come on, Sammy….. Let me help you… -born, -eat, -die!” “Oh it’s you, Geo!” You exclaim, glad to have a familiar voice speaking to you. “My, my, my, have you grown Sammy! What brings you back to the estuary?” Geo asks you. “I don’t know… I just had this urge to come home. That boy and his dad called me a spawner. What does that mean?” You ask, assuming Geo will know the answer. “It just means you made it, you’ve made the full circle. It’s your turn to help fertilize salmon eggs and then, die. Your body will decompose and feed small invertebrate that will feed the young salmon coming up.” Explained Geo “Really? Is that what the man meant when he said I needed to go finish my work?” You ask. “Yup, -born, -eat and –die. I told you before.” You ask, “Yet, when I die I will help the next generation of salmon?” “Yup, and all of us organisms in the estruary! Your body will help put nutrients and contribute food directly or indirectly to the entire community.” “OH Geo, you humor is terrible but I am glad I will help.” With that you swam on up the estuary with the other salmon. Thinking more about what the man and Geo said. You think to yourself, “I’m okay with it; I know it’s what I need to do.” You make your way all the way back to your breading grounds and even find the same patch of reeds in which you grew up. You spawn, then…die. Latter that spring tiny salmon alvin hatch and swim around enjoying the remains of the fall salmon run and began to grow stronger and larger.

http://www.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/education/documents/sicprimary- secprimaire/english/sic_primary_all.pdf