Species
The various species of salmon have many names.
Atlantic Ocean species
Atlantic Salmon has also been introduced elsewhere for sport fishing and fish-farming. In some areas, feral populations are now causing concern over their possible effects on other local native fish species.
- Another Atlantic species, Salmo trutta, is usually classified as a trout, despite being a closer relative of Atlantic Salmon than any of the Pacific species of salmon.
Pacific Ocean species
Some young fish spend as long as four years in fresh water lakes before migrating to the sea. In rivers without lakes, many of the young move to the ocean quite soon after hatching. These salmon mature after one to four years in the ocean.
Some Sockeye Salmon live and reproduce in lakes and are called "kokanee". They are much smaller than the ones that go to the ocean (rarely over 14 inches long).
This species is netted for commercial canning, especially in Bristol Bay, Alaska, site of the largest harvest of sockeye salmon in the world, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. The species has been preferred for canning due to the rich orange-red colour of the flesh. More than half of the sockeye salmon catch nowadays is sold frozen.
- Oncorhynchus tshawytscha is called Chinook Salmon, or locally, King, Tyee, Spring Salmon, Quinnat, Tule, or Blackmouth. This species grows to a great size and may migrate for hundreds or thousands of miles up freshwater rivers to spawn. The young live in freshwater as fry for some time. Maturity occurs between the second and seventh year of life.
Chinook salmon are also called 'King Salmon' because many consider them to be the best tasting. Those from the Copper River in Alaska are particularly known for the colour, flavor, firm texture, and high Omega-3 oil content.
- Oncorhynchus gorbuscha is called Pink or Humpback Salmon. This species is found from northern California and Korea, throughout the northern Pacific, and from the Mackenzie River in Canada to the Lena River in Siberia.
The young hatch by mid-winter and migrate to the ocean by spring. They move into the deep ocean in the fall where they stay for two years. When mature, the pink salmons return to spawn close to the coast, some in intertidal areas.
Beginning in the late nineteenth century, fish traps were used to supply fish for commercial canning and salting. The industry expanded steadily until 1920. During the 1940s and 1950s, Pink Salmon populations declined drastically. Fish traps were prohibited in Alaska in 1959. Now most pink salmon are taken with purse seines and drift or set gillnets. Some increase in population is evident.
- Oncorhynchus keta is called Chum Salmon, or locally, Dog or Calico. This species has a wide geographic range: south to the Sacramento River in California in the eastern Pacific and the island of Kyushu in the Sea of Japan in the western Pacific; north to the Mackenzie River in Canada in the east and to the Lena River in Siberia in the west.
Most Chum Salmon spawn in small streams and intertidal zones, especially among stalks of eelgrass. The young feed on small insects in streams and estuaries, then move out to saltwater in the fall. They mature after three, four, five, or six years. Some Chum travel more than 3,200 km (2,000 miles) up the 
