We stopped in Hydaburg, a little native community, for a couple of hours this afternoon. While we were walking around, we crossed a bridge over a little creek that was absolutely packed with salmon running upstream. Mostly, they were struggling to get up this one particular rapid that looked impossible. Every once in a while, one of them would jump part of the way up it and then get knocked back down. Eventually some of them will make it, and they’ll spawn further up the creek. Some of them won’t though. What a crummy life. They come out of the stream, swim around for a year, and—if they don’t get eaten by an otter or a porpoise or caught by a net or a hook—fight their way back to where they came from so that, if they’re lucky, they can lay their eggs and then get eaten by a bear.
Maybe being caught by you, then, is not the worst that can happen to a salmon.
ReplyDeleteAnd as we're comparing -- Hydaburg is 4 times bigger than Tenakee with 382 residents according to the 2000 census. Indeed, you always said you were a city girl!