Wildly Successful: Atlantic Salmon

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By Jim Knox

Jim Knox

My work as a zoologist enables me to view our wild world through a window of treasured experience. Whether studying Alaskan Brown bears, tracking Black rhinos or diving with Great White sharks, my work has taken me far beyond Fairfield County to explore the wilds of the Alaskan tundra, experience the beauty of the African savanna and ply the waters of the Indian Ocean. Closer to home, I’ve worked shoulder to shoulder with colleagues from Connecticut’s Beardsley Zoo and wildlife biologists from The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection to reintroduce more than one million Atlantic salmon to their ancestral waters in New England.

Each spring, soon after snow melt, we converge on the small headwater streams of major coastal rivers. With neoprene waders to guard against the chill of the water and five-gallon buckets to transport the fry, or newly-hatched salmon, we brace the current searching for ideal young salmon habitat. We identify fast, steady flowing stretches of stream devoid of ambush points for large ravenous trout as well as beds of cobble—bigger than a fist and no bigger than a football—to ensure cover for the little fish. With a slight dip of the bucket upstream, to imprint the fry to the unique chemical signature of their new home stream waters, we pour dozens into the swift current. Following instinct which has assured their survival for millions of years, they immediately dive for tiny crevices within the cobble of the streambeds. Deftly angling against the current, carefully weaving among slick, moss-cloaked boulders, we work as a team to reintroduce 5,000 to 30,000 fish a day. With as few as one to two fish per thousand surviving to return as spawning adults, every bucket, every pour, and every fish counts. The odds against them are steep. Seeing these fish once again swim in native waters where they had been extirpated–regionally extinct–for more than 200 years, and knowing that we played a small role in making that happen, makes those odds seem a bit less formidable.

A short hike from the Appalachian Trail flows a jewel of a stream. From frigid natal springs along the spine of the Berkshire Mountains, the silver waters of Sandy Brook braid down boulder-strewn slopes before coursing through the Farmington River Valley en-route to the Atlantic.  Sandy Brook remains one of the few streams in New England where an angler can score the coveted Grand Slam: the catch and release of a Brook trout, Brown trout, Rainbow trout and Atlantic salmon—all in the same day.

While the Grand Slam is elusive, it is attainable. The key is the salmon. With a spear-like head, deeply-forked sculling tail and laterally compressed body forged by torrents, the Atlantic salmon is a sleek bullet masquerading as a fish. To have one on the end of your line is to fleetingly tether nature’s beauty and power. To hold one in your hand is to grasp lightning’s flash. The day my son caught and released his first salmon on Sandy Brook—the very same stream I had stocked since before his birth—was a special one. His eager smile preceded the words.  “Hey dad!  Is this a salmon?”  “It sure is!” I confirmed. I thought it wasn’t possible but his smile grew to reveal even more teeth. For an instant, that 8-inch fish linked ocean, stream, father and son.  With a flick of tail and spark of mail, the little salmon launched skyward before splashing back in the current, resuming its journey to the sea. He has caught others since that May morning but none will ever conjure up the euphoria of his first salmon. For me, that moment will endure just as the timeless creature which inspired it.

Salmon are true survivors—the embodiment of perseverance in the face of adversity. Subjected to nature’s seemingly cruel version of an obstacle course, their first two years of life are spent in streams and rivers, contending with death daily. Flooding washes them into trout pools where they are quickly devoured, Great Blue herons spear them in the shallows and North American River otters outmaneuver and immobilize them—snipping off their tails for a leisurely kill. If that weren’t enough, fellow salmon cannibalize their brethren while Giant Water bugs impale them with rapier beaks, paralyzing them with digesting toxin to drink their liquefied remains. The young salmon smolts which survive the onslaught, migrate out to an impatient and ravenous sea: Double Crested cormorants hunt them in the estuaries, Harbor seals pick up the chase in coastal waters and 20 foot-long Greenland sharks swallow them whole in the depths off the western coast of Greenland. Uncertain ocean conditions induce havoc with these finely-tuned creatures: trillions of gallons of glacial meltwater may obscure chemical directional cues while water temperature variations brought on by climate instability threaten to diminish the abundance of prey species.

Despite these obstacles, many salmon endure the two year journey in the North Atlantic to reap the benefits of a life of risk. Feasting on krill and smaller fish, the young salmon receive a massive boost of protein and energy, growing phenomenally in size, speed and strength. Their enhanced streamlined bodies attain a silvery coat of scales along their 30 inch-long, ten pound frame in preparation for their return to life in freshwater. Following their hypersensitive sense of smell, they pick up the faint yet unique chemical signature of their native stream among myriad swirling eddies of scent-laced currents from thousands of miles at sea. Swimming toward the progressively concentrated plume of scent, they inexorably track to the mouths of their home rivers. It is here that Gray seals rejoin Harbor seals, closing ranks to pursue their speedy quarry. Once past this predatory vanguard, surviving salmon swim upstream to confront vigilant American Black bears and inventive human anglers. 

Yet all of these predators tell only part of the story. Such obstacles are an immutable component of the salmon’s life. The salmon’s strategy is to engage the obstacles head on. Like the salmon, we too can directly confront life’s obstacles, enabling us to fight smarter, not necessarily harder. The distinction is that the salmon will engage—converting the obstacle to a paper wall or simply a hurdle. Often times, the fish can use its powers to blast through the obstacle like a paper wall. Yet this is only the first option. By progressing slightly left or right, the salmon takes the fight to the threat via a glancing rush. When that fails—because it sometimes does—the salmon may literally vault high over the threat to land further upstream in a resting pool, reorienting its ascent, conserving vital energy for the next assault. Here is where the drive of the salmon is truly tested and proven. This remarkable fish will execute its assault upstream time and again, repeating the effort, often strategizing an alternate route dictated by head-on conditions. 

When we are inevitably confronted by analogous human obstacles such as health challenges, financial bottlenecks or energy depletion, we have an opportunity to apply the salmon’s strategy and gain from its example. Timing their upstream assault to coincide with the flood and drought conditions of each river, salmon have learned to recognize the windows of opportunity and leap the moment they open.

A good friend of mine and a fellow angler cites the virtues of the Atlantic salmon’s distant and less touted cousin, the American eel, to take the salmon’s strategy one step further.  In times of drought—when the river abandons them, the eels abandon the river—“swimming upstream” at night on the dew covered grass of riverbanks! While this imperative to ascend toward a goal with unmitigated drive is inborn, it can be modeled and replicated. 

In our lives, as in a salmon’s life, the right path is often the most difficult to follow.  When was the last time a path of least resistance led you to a place you truly wished to go?  By recognizing and channeling natural cycles to advance, salmon progress. For example, rainfall makes the upstream passage navigable yet too much makes it nearly impassable. Salmon gauge resistance to their effort and tailor their assault accordingly.  Salmon recognize the channels and cycles in their world by virtue of instinct. You have the benefit of knowledge. Schools, clubs, training, classes, shared life experience serve as the channels through which we can “swim” to success. Economic and growth cycles in turn trigger further hiring and opportunity cycles for those who alert themselves to emergent possibilities.

For the Pacific salmon (Chinook, Coho, Chum, Pink and Sockeye), ascending their native stream from the ocean is more than a mere journey. Their ascent marks their monumental effort to spawn as well as their demise. From the moment they reenter fresh water, their bodies undergo a drastic transformation which directs all bodily reserves to the ascent and breeding while allocating no energy to foraging, feeding or healing. This results in a journey which progressively destroys the animal in its race against time to create the next generation. Tattered fins, unhealed wounds and drastic weight loss are just a few of the telltale signs.

If these Pacific fish are impressive, it is the Atlantic salmon which is truly legendary among its phenomenal brethren. For reasons that still elude us, they have been known to spawn and return to sea. It is here that they achieve a Lazarus Effect—restoring ravaged bodies, recharging depleted energy and refocusing their efforts toward the next assault on the forces opposing them. Our personal journeys can beat us up—tattering our fins, yet we must temporarily forgo essential resources in accomplishing our goals with single-minded drive. One of the essential components toward such accomplishment is identifying and employing our own Lazarus Effect to restore, recharge and refocus us. It might be time with a dear friend, revisiting a place of significance in your life, or simply unplugging in nature. Whatever delivers healing and focus will serve as your personal Lazarus Effect. This is essential in order for us to muster and fully employ our strengths. You must identify it and utilize it to replenish what you deplete for the vital return passage. 

Some processes are purely quantitative and require a willful plunge into waters ahead.  If you know that your daily training regimen involves a five mile run, you psych yourself up and you hit the road. Other pursuits are more qualitative in nature and often require a bit more than industry alone.

In Atlantic salmon, we have a proven model, enabling us to recognize the existence of obstacles in our path as a mere impediment to our ultimate and successful destination, powering through those which yield, flanking or vaulting over those which do not. By adopting the mission-focused strategy of the salmon, we overcome the onslaught of threats to our needs and to our dreams.

Jim Knox spends a lot of time in Greenwich with students in partnership with the schools, the Bruce Museum, and other local partners educating us about wild animals and the importance of conservation.

He is the Curator of Education for Connecticut’s Beardsley Zoo; a graduate of Cornell University where he studied Animal Science, Applied Economics and Business Management; a guest lecturer for the University of Connecticut; a conservationist who has studied Black rhinos, lions and Great White sharks in Africa; an adventurer who has conducted field research on Alaskan Brown Bears; the former host of PBS television’s Wildzoofari; a writer who has written for PBS television and The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; a wildlife expert who has appeared on: The Today Show, The CBS Early Show and Fox News and has been featured in The New York Times; who also happens to be an incredibly kind person.

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