Description
Sockeye Salmon: Oncorhynchus nerka
The sockeye or red salmon is considered to be the best tasting of all the West Coast salmon. Growing to lengths of eighty-four centimeters (thirty- three inches) these fish range from the Bering Sea to Los Angeles, California. They spawn in freshwater tributaries of lakes where they spend the first one to three years. These young fish will now migrate to the ocean where they will live for another two to four years.
The silver fish here is the color of the Sockeye before spawning (or the color they stay if they don’t migrate to the ocean such as those in the Columbia River region where they are known as Bluefish). When it is time to spawn the males like these pictured turn bright red with green heads as they return to their home streams where they will spawn and die.
The totem like designs are of my own imagination. The landscapes within represent our beautiful coasts of the Pacific Northwest.
