Species and Habitat Outlines

Coho Salmon
TAXONOMY

Phylum: Chordata
Class: Osteichthyes
Order: Salmoniformes
Family: Salmonidae

 

ECOLOGICAL DATA

Distribution: One of the most widespread of Pacific salmon; spawn in smaller streams and rivers; extensive feeding migration in Pacific Ocean.

Habitat: adults migrate to streams from Jul to Nov; spawn from mid-Oct to mid-Dec, as late as Feb; eggs laid in gravel redds in streams; fry emerge in Apr and May; rear in freshwater for 1-2 yr and migrate as smolts to estuary in May and June, or fry may rear in estuary until late Sep-Nov; may rear in outer estuary from mid-May to June, occasionally to Sep; adults may make long ocean feeding migration, while resident or inshore migrants remain in Georgia Strait; some males or "jacks" return to freshwater after one summer in ocean; mature adults may hold in estuary for several days or weeks before migrating upstream to spawn.

Tidal elevation: fry may rear in estuary; smolts and adults feed and migrate in deeper water.

Food: fry prey on drift (e.g. Diptera and amphipods); smolts eat fish and decapod larvae, larval insects and crustaceans (e.g. gammarid amphipods); larger juveniles take herring and sand lance, euphausiids, amphipods and megalops larvae.

Predators: fishes, birds, marine mammals and bears.

GROWTH RATE

Mature at 3-4 yr, 1-2 yr in freshwater and 2 yr in ocean; may reach 98 cm.

FISHERY

Important sport fish; support commercial and Native fisheries; 1986 commercial catch was 11,666 t valued at $39.3 million.

REFERENCES

Aro, K.V., and M.P. Shepard. 1967. Salmon of the north Pacific Ocean - Part IV. Spawning populations of north Pacific salmon. 5. Pacific salmon in Canada. Int. North Pac. Fish. Comm. Bull. 23: 225-327.

Fraser, F.J, P.J. Starr, and A.Y. Fedorenko. 1982. A review of the chinook and coho salmon of the Fraser River. Can. Tech. Rep. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 1126: 130 p.

Hart, J.L. 1973. Pacific fishes of Canada. Fish. Res. Board Can. Bull. 180: 115-118.

Healey, M.C. 1980. The ecology of juvenile salmon in Georgia Strait, British Columbia., p. 203-229. In W.J. McNeil and D.C. Himsworth [ed.] Salmonid ecosystems of the North Pacific. Ore. State Univ. Press, Corvallis.

Healey, M.C. 1982. Juvenile Pacific salmon in estuaries: the life support system, p. 315-341. In V.S. Kennedy [ed.] Estuarine comparisons. Academic Press, N.Y.

Tschaplinski, P.J. 1987. The use of estuaries as rearing habitats by juvenile coho salmon, p. 123-142. In T.W. Chamberlain [ed.] Proc. Workshop: Applying 15 Years of Carnation Creek Results, Nanaimo, B.C.

 

For more information on coho salmon habitat utilization and life cycle - click here

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