One of the most amazing facts about Pacific salmon is their ability to return to their "natal" or home stream or lake. Salmon are thought to use several navigation aids to find their way back to where they were hatched. Scientists believe salmon use a combination of a magnetic orientation, celestial orientation, the memory of their home stream's unique smell, and a circadian calender to return to their natal stream to spawn. The memory and smell centers in a salmon's brain grow rapidly just before it leaves its home stream for the sea. A salmon can detect one drop of water from its home stream mixed up in 250 gallons of sea water. Salmon will follow this faint scent trail, with the aid of the other methods mentioned above, back to their home stream to spawn.
Credits: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service |
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