Chum salmon

Chum salmon
File:Chum salmon.jpg
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Actinopterygii
Order:	Salmoniformes
Family:	Salmonidae
Genus:	Oncorhynchus
Species:	O. keta
Binomial name
Oncorhynchus keta (Walbaum, 1792)

Keta redirects here. Keta can also refer to a character from the Myst Franchise.

The Chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta) is a species of anadromous fish in the salmon family. It is a Pacific salmon and is also known as dog salmon or Keta salmon.

Their ocean coloration of silvery blue green changes for spawning to splotchy purplish red and with distinct yellow and pink vertical bars on their sides. Color in the female is similar but not usually as distinct. Chum salmon develop a very hooked jaw with fierce teeth at spawning time.

Spawning

Most Chum Salmon spawn in small streams and intertidal zones, especially among stalks of eelgrass. Some Chum travel more than 3,200 km (2,000 miles) up the Yukon River. The young feed on small insects in streams and estuaries. Chum fry migrate out to sea from March through July, almost immediately after becoming free swimmers. They spend one to three years traveling long distances in the ocean. These are the last salmon to spawn (November to January). They utilize the lower tributaries of the watershed, tend to build redds in shallow edges of the watercourse and at the tail end of deep pools.

Where they are found

The chum salmon is found in the north Pacific in the waters of Korea, Japan, and the Okhotsk and Bering seas (Kamchatka, Kuril Islands, Sakhalin, Khabarovsk Krai, Primorsky Krai), and from Alaska to San Diego in the United States.

Among the Southern Ewes along the coast of West Africa, mainly, Ghana, Togo and Benin anchovies are called "Keta Schoolboys" a reference to the fishing town of Keta, Ghana.

Chum Salmon of a breeding season.

Artificially-incubated chum salmon

Sizes

Adult chum usually weigh from 4.4 to 6.6 kg, and 60 cm is their average lengh, but, at the most recorded, chum can weigh 13 kg and be as long as 102 cm!

What they eat

Juvenile chum eat plankton.

Commercial use and value

The chum salmon is the least commercially valuable salmon. They are so numerous at Alaska that commercial fishers are often kept from wanting to fish for them because of the low prices. Markets developed for chum from 1984 to 1994 at Japan and northern Europe increased their demand, though.

References

• "Oncorhynchus keta". Integrated Taxonomic Information System. 24 January. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help)
• Froese, Rainer; Pauly, Daniel (eds.). "Oncorhynchus keta". FishBase. October 2005 version.
• Encarta Encyclopedia
• Alaska Department of Fish and Game