Fish wheel salmon species Chinook, Chum, Coho, Sockeye, and Pink) and other anadromous species of fish, has given fish wheels their second name as "salmon" wheels. Although salmon were prioritized by commercial fishers and Indigenous peoples (albeit for different reasons,) other fish such as steelhead trout ("Oncorhynchus mykiss"), ooligan ("Thaleichthys pacificus"), and lamprey ("Lampetra tridentata") were also considered valuable catch. While the fish wheel is best known for its presence on the Northwestern coast of North America, there is debate whether the technology arrived via Asian migrants who had come to labor in the gold fields, by Scottish and Russian migrants, or
Fish disease and parasites mid-1980s, in particular, an overview report which states that "the fish that have the longest fresh water residence time as juveniles have the most noticeable infections. Hence in order of prevalence coho are most infected followed by sockeye, chinook, chum and pink." As well, the report says that, at the time the studies were conducted, stocks from the middle and upper reaches of large river systems in British Columbia such as Fraser, Skeena, Nass and from mainland coastal streams in the southern half of B.C. "are more likely to have a low prevalence of infection." The report also states "It