Healthy Salmon = Healthy Planet

Both Atlantic and Pacific salmon are essential to a healthy planet. These incredible species play a crucial role in connecting ecosystems, supporting biodiversity, and cycling nutrients through freshwater and marine environments. Their survival helps ensure the balance of entire food webs and the health of the ecosystems they inhabit.

Salmon are among the only 1% of species with the ability to live in both freshwater and saltwater. As a migratory species, wild salmon inhabit vastly different parts of the ecosystem in different life stages: born in freshwater, maturing in ocean water, returning to freshwater to spawn. They transform inside and out in order to survive the environmental conditions in each stage.^1,2

Wild salmon provide a vital service as a critical balancer of oceanic, river and riparian ecosystems (lands along the edges of rivers or other bodies of water). A salmon run, or migratory path, pumps vital nutrients and minerals through the water and into surrounding lands, meaning even nearby trees and plants benefit from their presence. Atlantic salmon spawn several times, repeating this critical process that links freshwater and marine environments.³

Pacific salmon are semelparous, meaning they die shortly after spawning. While this might seem like a disadvantage, it’s a critical ecological process — when Pacific salmon die, their bodies release essential nutrients into freshwater ecosystems, nourishing plants, animals, and aquatic life. This nutrient transfer supports entire food webs, from tiny invertebrates to large predators like bears and eagles.¹

As a keystone species, wild salmon support over 137 different species of mammals, birds, reptiles, fish and plants. The list includes orcas, dolphins, sharks and seals; bears, otters and mink; blue heron, snowy egrets and kingfishers; and plant life in the ecosystems they inhabit.^4,5

Wild Atlantic salmon play a similar role – and they’re even more at risk. Atlantic salmon is endangered in the United States and populations are unstable or plummeting elsewhere in the world.

However, unlike Pacific salmon, wild Atlantic salmon face an additional and intensifying threat: open net-pen salmon farming. While wild Pacific salmon face challenges of their own, such as habitat loss and climate change, Atlantic salmon are uniquely and acutely threatened by intensive farming practices.⁶

As indicator species, both Atlantic and Pacific salmon mirror the overall health of the planet. They are like honeybees, spotted owls, river otters and lichen in this regard. These animals are also known as biological indicators because they provide researchers with data that illuminates current environmental conditions. If the health of an indicator species is failing, it’s a good indication the overall ecosystem is suffering, too.⁷

When we protect wild salmon and their habitats, the entire ecosystem benefits.

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