Look To The SALMON - A Lesson In Determination

Around the world, the changing seasons and a strong determination to survive cause many creatures like me to make an all out do-and-die journey home to the place where we were born. It seems to be part of the Creator’s instinctual design for many species of fish, animals, birds and even insects. To observe our remarkable ability to navigate some thousands of miles against incredible odds, is to think about the great Designer who conceived the idea of making me.

I am a king salmon – an Atlantic species who can tip the scales to as much as 125 pounds. But this is small compared to my ancestors in the fossil record, one of which claims a weight of about 500 pounds, a length of ten feet, and is even equipped with fangs for battle – watch out for him.

My life is one of change. Progressing from an egg, to an “eyed egg”, to a “fry”, and finally to a young “parr”, I was finally ready to begin my incredible preparation for life in the ocean. Adapted for life in fresh water, I would quickly die in the ocean. But the ocean is my destination. Depending on the species, my kind begins migration to the ocean about a year after hatching (chum and pink salmon begin their migration to the ocean no more than a week or so after hatching!).

How will I survive when I get to the ocean? Well, I won’t – not without the masterful handiwork of my Creator.

Before reaching the estuary where fresh and salt water mix, I undergo a dramatic change called smolting. I become more streamlined, my tail becomes more elongated and forked, the parr marks (vertical bands on my sides) disappear and turn to a very silvery color. Simultaneously, internal changes take place. The memory and smell centers in my brain grow rapidly. Also my kidneys convert to be able to excrete salt instead of retain it! After reaching the estuary, I remain for a short time while the final stages of smolting are completed.

Before I was a fresh-water fish which would quickly die in the ocean. Now I am fully adapted for vigorous and competitive life in the deep salt water. But my traveling days are far from over.
My brother salmon, the Pacific salmon, migrate to the North Pacific Ocean where they remain for one to seven years, depending on the species. For some, it is a long journey of 3,000 to 3,500 miles – actually much further because salmon don’t swim in a straight line. We swim in the ocean an average of 18 miles per day and can maintain a speed of 34 miles per day for long periods.

We have a row of sensory pores called lateral lines along our sides which help us to navigate. The sensory pores provide a means of hearing low frequencies which help to detect very small ocean currents. They also help to find food and avoid predators. Some Sockeye salmon also use the sun and moon for navigation.

We spend different lengths of time in the ocean before returning to our home-rivers for spawning. Some of us spend one winter, others two, others three winters in the ocean. Could the Master Designer have built in this feature so all the eggs would not end up in one basket?

With an instinct for procreation so strong that it could only be by the Creator’s design, I then change course and head for home.

How can I find my way to the place where I myself was given life? Remember the rapid growth of memory and smell centers of my brain? Now I put these features to good use. I have a sense of smell hundreds of times more acute than that of a dog (and a dog’s sense of smell far outweighs a human’s). Scientific studies show that I can detect one part per million which is the equivalent of one drop of my home waters (from where I was hatched) in 250 gallons of water from another source.

After traveling thousands of miles I can finally pick up the scent of my birthplace, whether a hatchery or a stream, and I change direction once more. Then comes the seemingly impossible odds of navigating the rivers upstream. Some of my Pacific brothers swim more than 2,000 miles up the Yukon River and its headwaters. Determined by a built-in desire to navigate to the site where we were hatched, we fight rapids, and can leap falls more than 12 feet high! When we come to a fork in the river, we know just which one to take – we remember!

My life cycle is delicate. The odds against survival from egg to the return to the spawning grounds are very high. Only two to ten percent live to make the journey.

Starting from the time salmon eggs are deposited beneath the gravel of a stream they must be provided with cold, clean, swift water. Without these conditions, the incubating eggs will suffocate due to lack of oxygen. If the water becomes too warm they will become infested with disease. As the climate becomes warmer, and due to deforestation, warming water has become a concern. May of us die from this cause alone, and the threat grows every year.

Another threat to us is that of predators. Fish and small animals are always ready to snatch a young salmon during migration. Studies indicate that about 97% migrate at night to avoid predators as we swim backwards downstream seeking the safety of deep areas. Many of us are prized sports fish. While in the ocean, we are fair game for a variety of predators including seals, porpoises, birds-of-prey, and other large fish. We swim in schools for protection, displaying our flashy silver sides to confuse predators. Migrating back up the rivers many of us meet with hungry bears anxiously awaiting our return.

Before beginning our long and difficult journey back home, we must be prepared. Why? While making this amazing migration of two months or more and thousands of miles, we never eat a bite of food! Our one purpose is to reach home and spawn.

When in the salty waters of the ocean, we are a bright silver. But when making our way up the rivers, other last changes take place varying according to our species and the inland distance traveled.

The male Pacific salmon generally develop hooked jaws, and their gills turn a bright red as they begin their inland trip in fresh water. By the time they reach the spawning grounds, some of them are bright red, others green, brown striped, and even purple. These colors are most pronounced in males.

Our lives end with the process called spawning. While the Pacific salmon spawns only once and then dies, my Atlantic brothers may live to spawn three or more times before dying.

Once we reach the spawning grounds, the females choose a site and prepare nests for laying eggs. They lie on one side and rapidly move their tails back and forth over the gravel. Hardly touching the gravel with their tails they create water currents that wash away the gravel. These nests are about 6 inches deep. This process takes up to a whole day. They then deposit from 500 to 1,200 eggs while the males fertilize them. After covering the eggs, they move upstream, where the process is repeated for as many as four more times, until a total of 2,500 to 6,000 eggs have been deposited per salmon depending on the species. (Why so many eggs? The Creator has made this provision for the benefit of many creatures to fight the odds against survival). By the time the females have finished spawning, they have lost half their weight.

Through dogged determination, strength and navigational abilities that only an intelligent Creator could provide, we have accomplished our mission. With what strength is left, we guard the site until our death as an instinctive loyal duty dictates. Interestingly, our decaying bodies form a plentiful food supply for small organisms which are the main food source for the hatching offspring.

Yes, us salmon have a determined life – an instinctual life determined by a wonderful Creator.

Writer’s note: My wife and I were privileged in August, 1982 to witness the salmon spawning at Ketchikan, Alaska. We followed streams and waterfalls inland all the way to spawning beds where we were able to see the spawning activities up close. It is a somewhat sad sight to see these determined old fighters die in weakness, but we can learn some things about their Creator by their determination.

How much more is the determination of God to bring created human beings into His Family as His true children? There is a purposiveness there in God which even far outweighs the determination of His creature salmon. God is determined to have spiritual children! While the end of the salmon’s struggle is always death, the end of the human struggle doesn’t have to be death. By faith in our Savior Christ, we can have death to sin but eternal divine life from God.

Christ died a determined death in order to bring new life to newborn children of God (the salmon giving their lives for procreation are a lower level lesson for us). Even the example of the body substance of the adults nourishing the growth of the newborn salmon is a kind of a lesson. After His death, the spiritual “substance” or nature of God in Christ comes to nourish the spiritual growth of the newborn Christian. “CHRIST LIVES IN ME!” says Paul in Galatians 2:20. There are many lessons in nature.

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