Atlantic salmon from the Latin "salmo", meaning salmon, and "salar", meaning leaper, according to M. Barton, but more likely meaning "resident of salt water" . Lewis and Short's Latin Dictionary (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1879) translates "salar" as a kind of trout from its use in the "Idylls" of the poet Ausonius (4th century CE). Later, the differently coloured smolts were found to be the same species. Other names used to reference Atlantic salmon are: bay salmon, black salmon, caplin-scull salmon, Sebago salmon, silver salmon, fiddler, or outside salmon. At different points in their maturation and life cycle, they are known as parr,
Salmon run its birth, spawning, and then dying. Semelparous animals spawn once only in their lifetime. Semelparity is sometimes called "big bang" reproduction, since the single reproductive event of semelparous organisms is usually large and fatal to the spawners. Most Atlantic salmon also die after spawning, but not all. About 5 to 10%, mostly female, return to the ocean where they can recover and spawn again. In the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, salmon is a keystone species, supporting wildlife from birds to bears and otters. The bodies of salmon represent a transfer of nutrients from the ocean, rich in nitrogen, sulfur, carbon