stages of salmon life cycle

For this particular blog, I will be addressing the different stages of the salmon life cycle. I'll be using picture to help my audience visualize the different stages, to get a better idea of what I'm talking about.

The first stage in the salmon life cycle begins with the egg. The egg's are laid in gravel beds in streams ranging from 10 to 700 miles from sea. Laid in the fall, the eggs incubate over the winter under several feet of snow and ice. During this time, the eggs are always kept out of direct sunlight. The eyes begin to show about a month after they're initially deposited into the gravel beds.





The second stage in the life cycle of a salmon is the Alevin stage. Beginning in the late winter, the eggs hatch into these tiny creatures with huge eye and bright sacks. They grow very quickly underneath the gravel for about 3 or 4 months living off the nutrients from their sacks. During this time, they're well protected from predators underneath the gravel.





The third stage in the life cycle of a salmon is the fry stage. By the time a salmon has reached the fry stage, it has stopped living off its bright orange sack it had as an Alevin. They emerge from the gravel as fry in the months of May and June. During this time they're approximately one inch in length, self swimming and make for an easy target for predators. For those that survive against predators, stay and grow in lakes and rivers over the course of the next year.




The forth stage in the life cycle of a salmon is the Fingerlings stage. In the spring time, the salmon beginning their journey to sea. The reason this stage in a salmon's life has been named fingerlings, is because they grow to about four inches (approximately as long as a human finger) in length. During this time, they can spend up to 5 years in the sea, feeding off vegetation and growing rapidly.





The fifth stage of the life cycle of a salmon is the Adult Spawner. After the Fingerling stage in the sea, the salmon stop feeding and journey back into freshwater. For weeks they struggle against the tough conditions of overbearing rapids, fallen logs, and other obstacles until they finally reach the stream or river where they were born. Some pacific native salmon travel as far as 1,000 miles upstream to spawn.

From there the female digs a nest in the gravel approximately 18 inches deep. Sometimes it can take the female weeks to finish preparing the area in which she had decided to lay her eggs. Once she's ready, the male comes along and fertilizes the eggs with milky substances known as milt. Depending on what time of salmon, the adult either dies shortly after spawning or within a few weeks.

For more information on Salmon life cycles please check out the GoldSeal website.