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For a few short weeks every year, nearly every creek and river in Grays Harbor County experiences an influx of spawning salmon. There are five different species of Pacific salmon: Pink, Chum, Coho, Chinook, and Sockeye. Each arrives at different times of year and has its preferred rivers and nesting sites. We see every species of salmon in our county, except the Sockeye.
Salmon are compelling for many reasons. Foremost, they are delicious and nutritious and have been fished as a source of food since time immemorial. They are deeply entwined in the history, culture, and livelihoods of many families in our region, especially Native American families who have co-existed with and depended upon these animals since the Ice Age. Salmon are also exciting to watch as creeks and waterways fill with the large adults who dig nests (called redds) in the sediment to lay their eggs. Many people also enjoy watching young salmonids darting through pools and riffles at other times of the year, the baby fish adding an intriguing layer of life to the water. Salmon also draw other animals to the rivers, increasing our chances of seeing foraging bald eagles, otters, bears and other wildlife.
Biology
Pacific Northwest salmon are fish who are born in freshwater, spend their adult lives in the ocean, and return to their natal rivers and streams to breed. They have a complex life cycle that includes providing valuable nutrients to other animals and plants, by transporting these nutrients in their bodies from the ocean to the rivers where they die. Salmon stitch together the habitats of our region and are vital to the health of both marine and freshwater ecosystems. All of these characteristics can be used to help teach Life Sciences concepts in the Next Generation Science Standards.
Following are links and resources to help you connect your students with the local relevance of this animal.
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The saying, “When the tide goes out, the table is set” first appeared in print in the 1890’s, but some variation of the saying has been repeated in many languages, on both sides of the continent, since time immemorial. The group of animals we call “shellfish” includes a diversity of invertebrates united mostly by human appetite and habitats that include shallow water. Many of them are mollusks, including oysters, clams, and mussels, but the grouping also includes crustaceans like crab, shrimp, and barnacles.
Clams, oysters, and mussels are all bivalve mollusks, which means that they have two shells and belong in the phylum (major group) of invertebrates that includes snails, limpets, chitons, octopus, and squid. All three groups are also filter feeders, straining phytoplankton and other bits of food from the water that they pump over their gills. They differ in their general appearance. Oysters have rough, craggy, tan, or grey shells; clams have smoother, rounded, white, grey, or brown shells; and mussel shells are oblong, narrower at one end and have a blue to black coating that wears off in older individuals. They also differ in where they live; clams generally burrow in sand or mud, oysters live on top of the sediment and attach themselves to hard surfaces, especially the shells of other oysters. Mussels produce threads that they use to attach themselves to rocks or to other mussels. Biologists classify clams, oysters, and mussels each into a different family.
Crustaceans are a part of the arthropod phylum which includes animals with exoskeletons and jointed legs, like insects, spiders, and centipedes. Important crustaceans in the Twin Harbors include several species of crab, shrimp, and barnacles. Crabs and shrimp both have 10 legs (including their pincers). Shrimp are longer than they are wide and have an abdomen (tail) that helps them move quickly backwards. Crabs have a carapace (the largest part of their exoskeleton) that may be square or wider than it is long. Their abdomen is small and tucked under their body so that you usually cannot see it from the top. Barnacles are a group of crustaceans that attach themselves to hard surfaces and build a shell that completely hides their similarity to other crustaceans. Some look like tiny volcanoes attached to rocks, others have a fleshy stalk between the surface they attach to and the shell that covers most of the body. They look like the head and neck of a goose and are called “goose-neck barnacles.” Goose-neck barnacles are one of the ceremonial foods collected by Indigenous people and have appeared on the menu in Seattle restaurants.
Biology
All of the molluscan shellfish are filter feeders which gives them key roles in food webs and makes them sensitive to a wide variety of both biotic and abiotic factors in the ecosystems in which they live. They accumulate toxins produced by phytoplankton which do not affect the animals themselves but may have a serious impact on animals that consume them, including humans. Their life cycles include planktonic stages which may put them in very different food webs and ecosystems at different stages of their lives. The crustacean shellfish are often flexible in their feeding behavior so they may act in food webs as predators and as scavengers. They also have planktonic larval stages and participate in different ecosystems at different times in their lives.
Early Elementary
Upper Elementary
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