Homecoming
The Salmon That Came Back
How does a fish find one river after years in the open sea?
Generated interpretation
Listen, or read
A salmon is born in fresh water. She leaves. The ocean is huge. Years later she comes back to the same river system, often the same stream.
That is not luck. It is memory braided with senses.
Close to home, smell does much of the work. Each stream has a chemical voice.
What we know
Evidence, held lightly
We know
Salmon imprint on the odor of their natal stream and use it to home.
The evidence suggests
A magnetic map guides the ocean leg of the journey.
We are still figuring this out
How and when the switch from magnetic map to smell occurs.
We do not know yet
How a specific gravel bed, not only a river, is chosen at the very end.
Try this
A child can try this
Smell a place
Stand in a kitchen, a garden, a rain-wet street. Name three smells. Now walk away and come back. Smell is a map you already use. Salmon wrote theirs in a river.
Also nearby
A question to carry outside
How does the animal know it is home?