Sockeye salmon Sockeye salmon Sockeye salmon ("Oncorhynchus nerka"), also called red salmon, kokanee salmon, or blueback salmon, is an anadromous species of salmon found in the Northern Pacific Ocean and rivers discharging into it. This species is a Pacific salmon that is primarily red in hue during spawning. They can grow up to in length and weigh . Juveniles remain in freshwater until they are ready to migrate to the ocean, over distances of up to . Their diet consists primarily of zooplankton. Sockeye salmon are semelparous, dying after they spawn. Some populations, referred to as kokanee, do not migrate to the
Sockeye salmon Resources Commission in an attempt to establish the species as a forage fish for other predator fishes in the lake. This stock has remained and become a favorite target for anglers. In Japan, a landlocked variety termed black kokanee, or ""kunimasu"" in Japanese, was deemed to be extinct after 1940, when a hydroelectric project made its native lake in northern Akita Prefecture more acidic. The species seems to have been saved by transferring eggs to Saiko Lake, 500 kilometers to the south, however. This fish has been treated as a subspecies of sockeye "Oncorhynchus nerka kawamurae", or even an independent