Imagine a place where wild oceans meet ancient forests -- giant cedar trees, luscious with layers of sodden moss, grow low-hanging boughs that dip in to the sea at high tide; ocean-sprayed salal and huckleberry grow fierce and tangled in the understory; seaweeds and mussels cling to rocks that receive a steady rain of leaf litter from branches overhead. Here, where tides rule, two normally separate systems merge and become one. The mutual dependence between forest and ocean is easily understood at the interface where they meet, but this interdependence doesn't end here -- it penetrates deep into the forest, from the height of land where streams are born right to the ocean's edge. These streams and the rivers they feed are the stage for an intricate cycle that deepens the relationship between forest and sea: the yearly return of salmon to the waterways of Clayoquot Sound's salmon forest.
Sockeye Salmon in Kennedy River
Pacific salmon hatch in freshwater streams and rivers of temperate rainforests like Clayoquot Sound, and then head to the ocean. While at sea, salmon are the prey of a wide variety of animals -- sea lions, seals, orcas and other cetaceans, as well as humans. After a few years the salmon mature and once ready to reproduce are compelled to return to the very waters where they hatched. The trip home to spawn costs salmon their lives. As they spawn, however, the dying bodies of the adults become nourishment for the larvae of insects that will one day be food for young salmon. Even though they die, in their own way, salmon stick around to provide for the next generation.
Upon return the salmon also provide an essential source of food for many inhabitants of the forest -- a crucial time of gorging before the arrival of lean winter months. Scientists have demonstrated that wild Pacific salmon support over 137 animals on the west coast. Amongst these are 41 species of mammals including whales, bears, and wolves; 89 species of birds, including bald eagles and marbled murrelets; five species of reptiles and two amphibians. Ocean-derived nitrogen from wild salmon has even been found in a variety of insect species, insects that in turn become food for birds.
Animals like bears, wolves and eagles, drag their salmon catch from streams into the forest, where nitrogen-rich scraps of fish from messy feasting are left to decompose and fertilize the flora. The nitrogen added to the forest from discarded salmon is believed to affect the growth of trees. For example, studies indicate that trees downstream from a waterfall that is impassable to returning fish grow bigger than trees above the waterfall. When salmon are unable to jump the falls, trees upstream miss out on nature's ocean fertilizer. This nitrogen-derived signature of salmon has been found as far inland as the Rocky Mountains!
The ancient forests of the Pacific Northwest simply would not be the same if it were not for the salmon. The health of the remaining wild salmon is key to the health of the entire ecosystem. It takes a forest to raise salmon and, reciprocally, it takes salmon to raise a forest.
Friends of Clayoquot Sound
PO Box 489, 331 Neill St., Tofino BC V0R 2Z0
Tel: 250-725-4218 Fax: 250-725-2527
Email: info@focs.ca
About Clayoquot Sound
Map - Where is Clayoquot Sound?
Clayoquot Sound World Biosphere Reserve
What is a Temperate Rainforest?
Amazing Facts About Temperate Rainforests!
Photo Gallery: Beautiful Clayoquot Sound
Photo by Adrian Dorst
The health of the global environment depends on intact ecosystems. It is our responsibility to act as peaceful and courageous advocates for marine and terrestrial life in Clayoquot Sound. Join us!
