Habitat use and early marine ecology of juvenile (age-.O) Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) were studied monthly at inshore, strait, and coastal habitats along a seaward migration corridor in southeastern Alaska from May through October 1997-99. A total of 31 ,853 fish from 40 taxa were captured with 283 surface trawl hauls; juvenile salmon made up 61 % of the total catch. Predation on juvenil...

Homing Pacific salmon are suggested to utilise directional cues in shallow water while migrating in coastal waters. Since salmonids are typical cold-water fish, they may have to cope with warm surface water while gathering directional information. We studied behavioural thermoregulation of 31 free-ranging chum salmon Oncorhynchus keta using micro data loggers off the Sanriku coast from early Oc...

The objective of the present study was to investigate the bioavailability and the configurational isomer distribution of the carotenoid astaxanthin (AST) in human plasma after ingestion of wild (Oncorhynchus spp.) and aquacultured (Salmo salar) salmon. In a randomised and double-blind trial, twenty-eight healthy men consumed 250 g wild or aquacultured salmon daily for 4 weeks which provided 5 m...

Migratory salmon transit estuary habitats on their way out to the ocean but this phase of their life cycle is more poorly understood than other phases. The estuaries of large river systems in particular may support many populations and several species of salmon that originate from throughout the upstream river. The Skeena River of British Columbia, Canada, is a large river system with high salm...

The present study reports measured levels of Hg and other trace elements in commercial salmon feed; farmed Atlantic, coho, and chinook salmon (n = 110); and wild coho, chinook, chum, sockeye, and pink salmon (n = 91). Metal concentrations in farmed and wild salmon from British Columbia, Canada, were relatively low and below human health consumption guidelines. Methylmercury in all salmon sample...

Farmed Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) from Maine and eastern Canada, wild Alaskan Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), and organically farmed Norwegian salmon samples were analyzed for the presence of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dioxin-like PCBs, polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs), dibenzo-p-furans (PCDFs), and chlorinated pesticides. PCDD and PCDF congeners were not detected ...

In Asia, there are two distinct types of chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta Walbaum). The early-maturing or “summer” chum salmon generally returns to spawn from June through August in streams bordering Kamchatka, the Sea of Okhotsk, the east coast of Sakhalin Island, and the Amur River. Later-maturing or “autumn” chum salmon generally return to spawn from September through November in streams in Ja...

The genomes of chum salmon and pink salmon contain a family of short interspersed repetitive elements (SINEs), designated the salmon SmaI family. It is restricted to these two species, a distribution that suggests that this SINE family might have been generated in their common ancestor. When insertions of the SmaI SINEs at 10 orthologous loci of these species were analyzed, however, it was foun...

One of the most important traits linked with the successful domestication of animals is reducing their sensitivity to environmental stressors in the human controlled environment. In order to examine whether domestication selection in Atlantic salmon Salmo salar L., over approximately ten generations, has inadvertently selected for reduced responsiveness to stress, we compared the growth reactio...

Food availability can influence the nutritional and social dynamics within and among species. Our investigation focused on grizzly and black bears in coastal British Columbia, Canada, where recent and dramatic declines in their primary prey (salmon) raise concerns about potentially negative effects on bear physiology. We examined how salmon availability relates to stress and reproductive hormon...