Sockeye salmon ocean and live their entire lives in freshwater. Sockeye salmon is the third-most common Pacific salmon species, after pink and chum salmon. "Oncorhynchus" comes from the Greek ὄγκος (onkos) meaning "barb", and ῥύγχος (rhynchos) meaning "snout". "Nerka" is the Russian name for the anadromous form. The name "sockeye" is an anglicization of "suk-kegh" (sθə́qəy̓), its name in Halkomelem, the language of the indigenous people along the lower reaches of the Fraser River (one of British Columbia's many native Coast Salish languages). "Suk-kegh" means "red fish". The sockeye salmon is sometimes called red or blueback salmon, due to its color. Sockeye
Environmental issues with salmon 59 years of catch and escapement data of Bristol Bay sockeye to determine age and size at maturity trends attributable to the selectivity of commercial gillnet harvests. The study found that the larger females (>550 mm) of all age classes were most susceptible to harvest. The study suggests that smaller, younger fish were more likely to successfully traverse the gillnet fishery and reproduce than the larger fish. The study also found that the average length of sockeye harvested from 1946–2005 was 8 mm larger than the sockeye who escaped the gillnet fishery to spawn, reducing the fecundity of the average