spawning salmon

Protein limits in prehistoric Pacific Coast diets

Humans cannot live on protein alone—not even the ancient indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest whose diet was once thought to be almost all salmon. In a new paper led by WSU anthropologist Shannon Tushingham, researchers document the many dietary solutions ancient Pacific Coast people in North America likely employed to avoid “salmon starvation,” a […]

Salmon face double whammy from toxic stormwater

WSU researchers have found that salmon face a double whammy when they swim in the stormwater runoff of urban roadways. First, as scientists learned a couple years ago, toxic pollution in the water can kill them. WSU researchers have now determined that fish that survive polluted stormwater are still at risk. Experiments on both larval […]

Sex that moves mountains: Spawning fish can influence river profiles

It turns out that sex can move mountains. A Washington State University researcher has found that the mating habits of salmon can alter the profile of stream beds, affecting the evolution of an entire watershed. His study is one of the first to quantitatively show that salmon can influence the shape of the land. Alex […]