Cherry Salmon

Fascinating facts about the Cherry Salmon

• A mature masu salmon typically weighs between 2.0 kg and 2.5 kg and measures about 50 cm long, but the biggest individuals recorded in Primorsky Krai reach 71 cm and tip the scales at 9 kg.
• Most of the species’ range sits between 58° N and 65° N, and in the ocean it hangs out from the surface down to 200 m (about 660 ft), preferring those temperate waters.
• In rivers the fish stays for 1–3 years, then spends 2.0–3.5 years at sea before returning to spawn, usually in its third to seventh year – a timing that makes its spawning run start earlier than any other Pacific salmon.
• When a male survives after spawning, it’s often a dwarf male that can return the next year to help fertilize the next batch of eggs, a rare case of repeat spawning in a species where most adults die after the run.
• The species includes a critically endangered form, the Formosan salmon (O. m. formosanus), which lives in land-locked waters of Taiwan, showing how a single salmon can span from the cold seas of Russia to isolated mountain streams in the tropics.

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