Sockeye salmon and more numerous eggs, better nest choice and ability to defend it, and the ability to bury eggs deeper and provide more protection. Females vary their breeding rate depending on the size of the courting male, mating more quickly with larger males. This increases the likelihood that larger males will displace attending, smaller males. Male sockeye salmon social status and greater reproductivity are directly associated with larger body size and more extreme body shapes; Larger bodies provide males with advantages when it comes to intrasexual competition and being selected for by females during reproduction. Males preferentially spawn with females who
Sockeye salmon National Marine Fisheries Service. Other sockeye populations in the upper Columbia River and in Puget Sound are not listed under the Act. Sockeye is an exception to 2010's forecast resurgence of Oregonian fish stocks. Spring Chinook, summer steelhead, and Coho are forecast to increase by up to 100% over 2008 populations. The sockeye population peaked at over 200,000 in 2008 and were forecast to decline to just over 100,000 in 2010. As an early indication of the unexpectedly high sockeye run in 2010, on July 2, 2010, the United States Army Corps of Engineers reported over 300,000 sockeye had passed