Pacific salmon

About Pacific salmon
The Pacific salmon belongs to a group of fish that also includes the Atlantic salmon, the sturgeon, the herring and many other fish species. These groups is an anadromous fish group, meaning that the species belonging to it hatch and live the first part of their lives in fresh waters and then they migrate to the ocean in order to live the rest of their adult lives. Once in the ocean the Pacific salmon can live from 6 months to as long as 7 years. When the Pacific salmon reaches the sexual maturity it travels back to the fresh water to lay its eggs. Unlike other fish belonging to the anadromous group, the Pacific Salmon makes this round trip only once in its life. This up river migration of the pacific salmon is long, strenuous and full of obstacles.

Species
There are seven different species of Pacific salmon:
 * chinook
 * chum
 * coho
 * cutthroat
 * pink
 * steelhead, and
 * sockeye

One of the most interesting things about the Pacific salmon in general is its ability to find their way home again.