NANFA-- What fish travels 800 miles backward?

Roghfish_at_aol.com
Thu, 12 Oct 2000 06:01:37 EDT

I'm on several Mail list from the learning Kingdom and this was the cool fact
for the day.I thought some might find this interesting.

When Chinook salmon fry are first hatched, they cling to the pebbles
and rocks of the high mountain streams where their parents laid their
eggs. For a whole year and sometimes two, the fingerling salmon live
in the cold waters of the high rocky mountains.

When they are about five inches long (12 cm) the young fish allow
themselves to be carried downstream, but their current-fighting
instinct keeps them facing upstream. They complete the entire
journey to the Pacific Ocean backwards, swimming upstream but moving
downstream.

The 800-mile (1300 km) backward journey is only the first challenge
the salmon must face. They must stay alive in the ocean, growing
strong and fat. They then must retrace their path, swimming upstream
to the same cold mountain creek where they were born, to mate and
begin the cycle again.

Chinook and other kinds of salmon are seriously threatened:
<A HREF="http://www.nwf.org/wildalive/salmon/">
http://www.nwf.org/wildalive/salmon/</A>
Read about a fish immune to the sting of a sea anemone:
<A HREF="http://features.LearningKingdom.com/fact/archive/1999/11/12.html">
http://features.LearningKingdom.com/fact/archive/1999/11/12.html</A>
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