Sockeye salmon Facts for Kids

Sockeye salmon hatch in a stream and swim out to the sea. Later they swim all the way back home. When they come home, their bodies turn bright red!

A sockeye starts life as a tiny fish in a stream or lake, then swims down to the sea to grow big. After living in the ocean for a while, it finds its way back to the very stream where it hatched, helped by its sense of smell. On the trip home it swims up rivers and leaps up small waterfalls, and its silver body turns red with a green head.

Sockeye salmon spend most of their lives in the North Pacific, eating plankton and tiny shrimp-like krill, which give their flesh its deep red color. When it is time to head home, they use the smell of the water, which they remember from when they were small, to find their own stream. Their journeys carry food from the sea to the forests, helping bears, eagles and even trees. Some groups of sockeye are in trouble because of dams and warming rivers, so people build fish ladders and protect streams.