This crush looks almost fake red salmon in Iliamna Lake, the largest lake of Alaska. Salmons are born in lakes like this, but live as adult animals in the open sea from Alaska to California and from Siberia to the north of Japan – and are essential there.
“Salmic and cultural ‘key’ are considered to be an ecological and cultural ‘key’, since they support hundreds of aquatic and terrestrial species as well as indigenous and local communities in a huge arc from water catchment areas that extends from California to Alaska to the Russian Far East and Japan,” report researchers from the Wild Salmon Center in Portland. You have just examined how ecosystems, biodiversity and climate could benefit from the protection of intact salmon catchment areas.
The answer: considerable. Because salmon not only feed us humans, but also endangered animals, including an endangered sword whale population in the northeastern Pacific. A “salmon diet” also ensures more young people in brown bears. If the fish return to the rivers to the spawning, they even fertilize the trees on the river banks with the nutrients absorbed in the sea. Forests around such “salmon high castles” can bind about 6.1 billion tons of carbon per year – this corresponds to the amount of emissions that the United States release in about 3.5 years.
“If you protect the salmon, you also protect the advantages of healthy water catchment areas,” summarizes Rahr. “Science is aware that rivers inhabited can ensure nutritional security, biodiversity and resilience to the climate.” He and his team therefore call for extensive protection zones for the fishing beneficials.