Pink Salmon

pink salmon

Food fish (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha, family Salmonidae) of the North Pacific that constitutes half of the commercial fishery of Pacific salmon. It weighs about 4.5 lbs (2 kg) and is marked with large, irregular spots. Pink salmon often spawn on tidal flats. The young enter the sea immediately after hatching.

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pink salmon [‚piŋk ′sam·ən]

(vertebrate zoology)

Oncorhynchus.Weighing less than 2 kilograms (5 pounds), it is the smallest but typically most abundant of the salmon. Also known as humpback salmon.

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Pink Salmon 

(Oncorhynchus gorbuscha), also humpback salmon, a fish of the genus of Pacific salmon. Approximately 0.5 m long, it weighs about 1.5 kg (the smallest representative of the Pacific salmon genus). The scales are very small. The fish is distributed in the northern part of the Pacific Ocean south to Vladivostok and San Francisco as well as in the Arctic Ocean west to the Lena River and east to the Mackenzie River. Migration up the rivers to spawn takes place at any time from the end of June to the beginning of August. The fish spawns over gravel in the shallow parts of rivers from the middle of July to the beginning of October. In the south these dates are earlier than in the north. Before spawning a hump forms on the males. After spawning the fish die. The reproductive capacity is 1,200–2,000 roe. The fry descend to the sea around May. They return sexually mature to the rivers the following year. The size of the fish in catches fluctuates greatly from year to year. The pink salmon is an important commercial fish. It is acclimatized in the Barents and White seas as well as in the vicinity of Newfoundland.

REFERENCE

Vosproizvodstvo i akklimatizatsiia lososevykh ν Barentsovom i Belom moriakh. Moscow-Leningrad, 1966.

G. U. LINDBERG