More About Salmon

School of salmons marching to their breeding ground. Photo by: PatClayton

Salmon is one of the fish largely farmed these days. The farming technologies help more people from all around the world to enjoy eating salmon at the same time avoiding wild salmon to recover from overfishing, loss of habitats due to dam constructions deforestation and development. No one knew the exact numbers of the ideal salmon in the wild, but avoiding further damage to the wild population in important before it’s too late.

There are more interesting things about salmon that we need to know. As the salmon that grows for commercial purposes only few types that suitable for the farming industries. While there are many other salmons included in this family and some of them not even migrate to the sea as other salmon do. So what happen to them? Are all of them threaten as the common salmon (Atlantic salmon: Salmo salar and Pacific salmon: genus Oncorhynchus)?

Salmon's steak. Photo by: J.Kenji López-Alt 

Chinook salmon, the largest salmon today. Drawing of Ocean Phase Chinook (king) salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha). Image by: eopugetsound.org

Salmon is the group of fish in the family Salmonidae that also includes trout, char, grayling and whitefish. But the salmon that we are going to talk about are mostly the two popular group of North Atlantic (genus Salmo) and Pacific Ocean (genus Oncorhynchus) and few more species in the same family.

The main group of salmons show in the table below with their genus, names, scientific names, maximum length, common length, maximum weight, and maximum age. These are also the salmons that use as farming salmon for commercial purposes. From their maximum age, we will know their life cycles and how long it would take for the salmon to restore their population.

Genus	Common name	Scientific name	Maximum length	Common length	Maximum weight	Maximum age
Salmo (Atlantic salmon)	Atlantic salmon	Salmo salar Linnaeus, 1758	150 cm	120 cm	46.8 kg	13 years
Oncorhynchus (Pacific salmon)	Chinook salmon	Oncorhynchus tshawytscha (Walbaum, 1792)	150 cm	70 cm	61.4 kg	9 years
	Chum salmon	Oncorhynchus keta(Walbaum, 1792)	100 cm	58 cm	15.9 kg	7 years
	Coho salmon	Oncorhynchus kisutch(Walbaum, 1792)	108 cm	71 cm	15.2 kg	5 years
	Masu salmon	Oncorhynchus masou(Brevoort, 1856)	79 cm	cm	10.0 kg	3 years
	Pink salmon	Oncorhynchus gorbuscha (Walbaum, 1792)	76 cm	50 cm	6.8 kg	3 years
	Sockeye salmon	Oncorhynchus nerka(Walbaum, 1792)	84 cm	58 cm	7.7 kg	8 years

Other than the main species of salmons there are few more salmon that we should know;

• Black Sea salmon (Salmo labrax) - small species of salmon with 51 cm (20 in) in length on average and can reach up to 76 cm (30 in). This species inhabits the northern Black Sea coast and inflowing river. Same as other salmon they are also anadromous, lacustrine and resident river populations. Spawn in October - January. Parrs live in rivers for 2 - 4 years, then smoltify and migrate to the sea or mature in the freshwater. They can spend for another 2 - 4 years before return to the spawning areas. Their conservation status also showing least concern.
• Danube salmon (Hucho hucho) - also known as huchen, is a large freshwater fish. They never go to the sea as any other salmon. Huchen is endemic to the Danube basin in Europe. They also reported to be found in the Dniestr basin in the historic time and in big dam reservoirs on the mountain such as Lake Czorsztyn in Poland. Huchen is a big fish with size up to 1.5 m (4ft 11 in) and weight up to 50 kg 110 lb). The modern record for largest huchen is 34.8 kg (77 lb), caught in February 1985 in Spittal an der Drau in Austria, while older records reported weights in excess of 60 kg (130 lb). Unfortunately the conservation status for huchen already reach the level of “threatened”.
• Sabertooth salmon (Oncorhynchus rastrosus) - is an extinct species of salmon that can grow to very large sizes. They lived along the Pacific coast of North America in the late of Miocene Period, near California. The adults grew up to 2.7 m (9 ft) in length and also an anadromous like the modern salmon. They have a pair of small fangs protruding from the tip of the snout that also gave them their name. Even though so big they believe to be planktonic feeder. More about sabertooth salmon can be found here.

Black Sea salmon. Photo by: Otel,Vasile  

Danube salmon. Photo by: Hartl,Andreas

The display of saber-tooth salmon at Museum of Natural and Cultural History in Eugene. Photo by: RACHAELMCDONALD

Yes there are many other fish in the same family of Salmonidae. If you want to know more details about the sub-species in this family the best place to look for them is through fishbase. While salmon farming get better in producing good quality of salmon every year and the wild salmon population getting increases. The sub-species of salmon too should be taken care off too. With more knowledge shares among publics the awareness of conservation will be taken more seriously by each individual.

How Nutrient From The Sea Ended Up In The Forest?

Chum salmon swimming their way back to their breeding place. Photo by: Thomas Kline, Salmonography.

It’s hard to believe that trees deep in the forest get their nutrients far-far away from the sea. That what the wonder on nature when they work together accordingly. One of examples that we can see is the returning of salmon during the breeding season.

Salmon is one of few species of animals that start their life in the freshwater and spend their growing time in the sea then return back only to lay their eggs. As they return their journey back to the deep forest that might take few thousand kilometres as example of chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta) that travel the longest journey far up to Yukon River and deep into the Amur River basin where the journey will take more than 3,200 km (2,000 mi).

Alaskan brown bear with chum salmon. Photo by: Alan Vernon

Salmon alevin. Photo by: OpenCage

Within their journey they will become meals for numbers of other animal species such as eagle, otter, water birds, and bear that waiting for their returning from the sea. Then for the surviving salmon will continue their journey to their breeding place far into the forest. Their journey up the river requires them to have strong muscles, with it they are capable to leaps more than 2 meters height.

Travelling far from the sea will make salmon lost lots of energy all of them will die after spawning their eggs. Their carcases might be taken by other animals out of the water and left the remaining alone. Then the remaining will become home to blow fly’s larvae that will eat on the remaining flesh.

Once they are ready, the maggots will buried themselves in the soil until they emerge as adult flies. These flies again will do another important thing for plants and trees in the surrounding areas; pollinating the flowers to make sure they can produce seeds for their next generation.

Dying salmon after the breeding season. Photo by: Ned Rozell

Death salmon releasing nutrients from the sea. Photo by: fishbio.com

We might think that salmon just one species of animal and maybe important to those few animals that eat them. With closer observation we can see how all the ecosystem intertwine together with every single piece of them nourishing one another.

Even though each female salmon can carry from 2,500 to 7,500 eggs depending on size and species, only some of them will hatched. From that numbers less than 2 percent will return to the same location to spawn again in the next 6 to 7 years.

More Interesting Things About Flying Fish

Flying fish leaping out of the water in group - Photo by: caribbeannewsservice.com

Flying fish is the only fish that can fly or actually gliding in the air in order to avoid their predators. Compared to its body size the distance they can achieve from the glide is considered very far. Even though this behaviour help them to run away from the predators, but their predators too have different techniques to catch this super leapers.

Flying fish are family of fish known as Exocoetidae, in the order of Beloniformes class Actinopterygii, with 64 species from 9 genera. They can be found in all of the oceans, mostly in tropical and warm subtropical waters. That’s the other reasons why flying fish is quite popular as part of people’s culture all over the world, from Japan, Vietnam, China, Indonesia, India, South America such as Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago. Besides of that, flying fish still can be found in many other areas (even when they are not become part of people consumptions for that areas).

Flying fish has a bigger fins than usual fish. - Photo by: hootersbutwithcats

Flying fish from the side. - Photo by: Thinkstock

Flying fish can achieve great distance when they gliding above the sea. The distance can get farther with the right condition of wave and wind. They can reach up to 4 feet heights and gliding distances up to 655 feet. Sometimes they will continue the jump soon after touching the water to reach longer distances up to 1,312 feet. They also can soar high enough and sometimes get stranded on the decks of ships.

Flying fish become important food source for other bigger species of fish in the sea and when they leap out the water, birds too will take advantage to make them as their food. With their size can reach up to 18 in (45 cm), flying fish is consider moderate in size. Flying fish had been using in many dishes all around the world. One of the popular dishes is the flying fish sashimi from Japan.

Fried flying fish. - Photo by: Josh Berglund

Sashimi - Tobiuo (Flying Fish) - Photo by: travel.gaijinpot.com 

Fisherman caught them with different ways such as using gillnetting in Japan, Vietnam and China, while using dipnetting in Indonesia and India. There’s also a technique using lights to catch this fish as they are attracted to the lights (especially during the dark moon).

Catch in the mid air by bird. - Photo by: aquarium.ucsd.edu

Chase under the water. - Photo by: YouTube

Even though flying fish is not considered as threaten species, their hunting should be controlled in order to avoid overfishing. Flying fish is important to human especially in some cultures, but they are more important to the nature itself.

Snail Farming and What It’s All About?

Snail farming in Europe. Photo by: radiokerry.ie

Never thought that snail farming to be one of the most profitable farming industries today. Even though it’s not as popular as many other farming industries, snail farming gain popularity when their usage get more than just for human consumption. While only few countries in the world popular with snail’s dishes but beauty industries spread to wider user and the substances for their products produces by this wonderful creature; snail.

Snail farming is not new to human. The farming practice had been described long ago in Lumaca romana, (translation: Roman snail) by Fulvius Lippinus (49 BC). We don’t know how long it’s been practiced before the documentation. It also indicate snail was one of the important resources since long-long ago.

Snail farming known as heliciculture, or heliculture is the process of raising land snails for human use either as food source or other usage such as producing slime for cosmetics industries or snail eggs as a type of caviar. There are many land snails use as food all around the world, but the popular snails known as escargot mostly refers to either Helix aspersa or Helix pomatia, and they both are tasty.

Snails ready to be ship in UK. Photo by: thatsfarming.com

Snail farming in Africa generate good income for farmer. Photo by: heifer.org 

While for cosmetic purposes, snails slime been used since ancient Greek to improve face moisture, to reduce wrinkles and to rejuvenate the skin (that includes reducing scars or blemishes). Snail’s slime or mucin contain hyaluronic acid, glycoprotein enzymes and peptides – that used in many other products not produced by the snail mucin.

If you’re interested to try the snail mucin products, it’s better you to try the ready cosmetics – for the mucus/mucin already treated clinically for safety usage (so use the known brands for extra safety). Snails as any other animals can be infested by many diseases, pest, worms and many other kind of infection. Proper preparation is very important to make sure your safety for using such kind of products.

Back to the snail’s farming, it can generate large margin of income – for the cost of running snail’s farm is lower. Instead snail’s farm getting popular not only in European countries but it also grows rapidly in Africa, North and South America and Australia. In fact there are many other species of snails being farmed. Some of the species included;

Helix aspersa, also known as "petit gris" one of popular in snail cuisines. Photo by: Waugsberg

One of popular dishes with snail. Photo by: escargot-world.com 

• Helix aspersa, also known as "petit gris," "small grey snail," the "escargot chagrine," or "la zigrinata".
• Helix pomatia, also known as "Roman snail," "apple snail," "lunar," "la vignaiola," the German "Weinbergschnecke," the French "escargot de Bourgogne" or "Burgundy snail," or "gros blanc".
• Otala lacteal, also known as "vineyard snail," "milk snail," or "Spanish snail".
• Iberus alonensis, the Spanish "vaqueta" or "serrana".
• Cepaea nemoralis, "grove snail," or the Spanish "vaqueta" from central and Europe and introduced to United States.
• Cepaea hortensis, "white-lipped snail" native to central and northern Europe.
• Otala punctate, "vaqueta" found in some part of Spain.
• Eobania vermiculata, "vinyala," "mongeta," or "xona", from the Mediterranean countries, then introduced into Louisiana and Texas.
• Helix lucorum, "escargo turc" quite big with size up to 45 mm across from central Italy and Yugoslavia, Crimea to Turkey and around Black Sea.
• Helix adanensis, from Turkey.
• Helix aperta, native to France, Italy and other Mediterranean countries. Nowadays already established in California and Louisiana.
• Theba pisana, "banded snail" or the "cargol avellanenc", native to Sicily and spread to several European countries, including England.
• Sphincterochila candidissima, also known as "cargol mongeta," or "cargol jueu"
• Achatina fulica, or giant African Snails can reach size up to 326 mm (1 ft ¾ in) in length. Native to south of the Sahara in East Africa. Also caused serious agricultural pest problem in other areas such as California, Hawaii and North Miami Florida. Still giant African Snails is the most popular snail as pet.

All of the snails above are example of land snails that grown in snails farming. Without proper care snails can be serious agricultural pest problem especially when it come from other areas. Some snail species can increase in numbers very rapidly when the condition is right such as giant African snail that threaten not only native snails but also others animals that feed on the same food sources.

Snail caviar another new product: Photo by: caracolchile.blogspot.my

Beauty creams with snail's mucin: Photo by: nylonpink.tv 

As the snails farming is still considered new. Many other possibilities can be achieved with more research and development to identify the potential of snail’s base products. While at the same time, farmers need to be responsible to make sure the safety of the farming method to avoid the harmful effect of snails to natural/local environment.