Species: Salmo salar

Atlantic Salmon

Species

Fishes

Show on Lists

Invasive species: fishes

Fishes of the Salish Sea

Encyclopedia of Puget Sound

Articles:

Despite WA ban on farmed salmon, BC impacts may flow across border

A high-profile salmon escape led to a ban on salmon farms in Washington earlier this year. But just across the border, scientists say salmon farms in British Columbia expose migrating fish from Puget Sound to potential maladies like parasites, bacteria and dangerous viruses. They say simply getting rid of salmon farms in Washington does not put the potential impacts to rest.

A US Fish & Wildlife Atlantic employee displays an Atlantic Salmon with characteristic large black spots on the gill cover. Credit: Greg Thompson/USFWS (CC BY 2.0) https://www.flickr.com/photos/43322816@N08/9680675578

Classification

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Craniata

Class

Actinopterygii

Order

Salmoniformes

Family

Salmonidae

Genus

Salmo

NatureServe

Source:
ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.104403

Classification

Other Global Common Names

Saumon atlantique

Informal Taxonomy

Animals, Vertebrates - Fishes - Bony Fishes - Salmon and Trouts

Formal Taxonomy

Animalia - Craniata - Actinopterygii - Salmoniformes - Salmonidae - Salmo - See taxonomy comments for the Gulf of Maine population.

Ecology and Life History

Short General Description

A migratory fish (salmon).

Habitat Type Description

Freshwater

Migration

true - true - true - Migrates up to thousands of kilometers between freshwater spawning habitat and marine nonspawning habitat. A number of native landlocked populations are known. Resident and anadromous populations may be sympatric in some areas. Returns to natal stream in spring. In New England, adults ascend rivers beginning in spring, with a peak in June and continuing into fall.

Non-migrant

true

Locally Migrant

true

Food Comments

Adults eat fishes and crustaceans (euphausiids, amphipods, decapods) in salt water, do not feed in fresh water. Young in streams eat mainly aquatic insect larvae and terrestrial insects (Scott and Crossman 1973), sometimes fish eggs.

Reproduction Comments

Spawns in fall (late October and early November in Maine). Eggs hatch in early spring. Young spend 1-3 years in stream rearing habitat, go to sea (in spring), return to spawn after 1-4 winters at sea (most from New England spend two years at sea). Adults may spawn in more than one year. In Europe, the majority of the smallest adults spawned annually, the largest biennially (Jonsson et al. (1991). Apparently, severe post-spawning mortality is normal in natural habitats, but survivorship generally is higher in artificially "reconditioned" kelts or in lake-locked populations (Stearley 1992).

Length

140

Conservation Status

NatureServe Global Status Rank

Global Status Last Reviewed

2001-06-28

Global Status Last Changed

1996-03-18

Distribution

Conservation Status Map

Global Range

North Atlantic, south to Portugal in the east, south to Connecticut and Housatonic rivers in the west (possibly formerly to Delaware); north to Ungava Bay (northern Quebec) and to the Nastapoka River in eastern Hudson Bay (Morin 1991); inland in North America to Lake Ontario, where now extirpated; widely stocked in lakes but seldom successfully. A spawning population, evidently derived from feral adults used for aquaculture, appears to be established in the Tsitika River in British Columbia, and freshwater and marine recoveries are well documented in Alaska (Volpe et al. 2000). Locally common, but depleted or extirpated from western and southern parts of range (Page and Burr 1991). The only remaining populations that are believed to consist, at least in part, of native fishes in U.S. rivers occur in Maine: Dennys, Machias, East Machias, Narraguagus, Pleasant, Ducktrap, and Sheepscot rivers (Colligan and Nickerson 1996); a few populations have been partially restored through hatchery production (Federal Register, 20 January 1994).

ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.104403