Monday, April 15, 2013

Even Dead Fish Have A Story

Salmon are tough as nails.  They're born along with thousands of their brothers and sisters, working with a very small percentage to live.  In the first few stages of their life, they're constantly battling to stay alive, to live and feed in the river that they were born in.  Once they reach maturity, the hard part starts.  Using the instincts they were born with, they follow the river downstream until they reach the ocean, where a new life, along with a whole new batch of dangers await.  Orca whales, Salmon sharks, and even humans are just a few things these fighters have to deal with while living in the ocean.

Their next journey is their last.  The same instinct that drove them from their birth place out into the vast ocean kicks in again, guiding them back to that same river.  The salmon spawn, and finally end their epic, perilous journey.  Tired and very beat up from the spawning process, they die.  Some of them will decay and become a part of that river where it all began.  Others, like the one in the picture above, get caught up in shallow waters.  The seasons change and the water levels drop, temperatures plummet and snow falls, preserving the carcass for months, even years.  

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