Salmons and Alaska are two words that are perfectly matching in the naive imagination of a urban animal like me. But during this Alaska trip I didn't really plan any "special visit" to creeks where the salmons are running to lay their eggs. But something that I did learn during this trip, is that in Alaska you don't really need to go to any national park to see wildlife. So this is what happened. We were driving in the Kenai peninsula and on the road we saw a sing "Salmon Watching (June - September)". The place was just few miles out of Seward, AK. Curious, we decide to U-Turn and just 50 meters from the main road we found something amazing ... Sockeye salmons, AKA red salmons, running in a tiny creek ... something I saw only in TV before ... and believe me ... there is nothing like watching wildlife in its environment ...
... and again the most amazing thing to me was that this creek was so close to the main road. Really incredible Alaska. But at that point something that we didn't expect start happening. The salmons once they had lay their eggs, just died one after the other. I knew from books and TV documentary that this is the way it goes, but watching die in front of me these huge salmons it is something that really made a huge impression n me. You know you are there watching these incredibly strong fishes ... and bang ... they lay on a side and they just die ...
... but to balance the disappointment you can feel watching the death of these incredible animals,you can see spots in the creek full of small salmons (the scientific name is fry), which are probably just few weeks old and probably eating of the rotten bodies of the dead fishes ...
... the circle of birth, life and death in a small creek ... the ecosystem ... explained like nobody was able to explain to me with tons of books ... probably all of us, should take more camping trips to really appreciated the fact that we are just animals in this planet ... and we don't have any right to destroy all the ecosystems, just because they are not convenient to us ...
... and again the most amazing thing to me was that this creek was so close to the main road. Really incredible Alaska. But at that point something that we didn't expect start happening. The salmons once they had lay their eggs, just died one after the other. I knew from books and TV documentary that this is the way it goes, but watching die in front of me these huge salmons it is something that really made a huge impression n me. You know you are there watching these incredibly strong fishes ... and bang ... they lay on a side and they just die ...
... but to balance the disappointment you can feel watching the death of these incredible animals,you can see spots in the creek full of small salmons (the scientific name is fry), which are probably just few weeks old and probably eating of the rotten bodies of the dead fishes ...
... the circle of birth, life and death in a small creek ... the ecosystem ... explained like nobody was able to explain to me with tons of books ... probably all of us, should take more camping trips to really appreciated the fact that we are just animals in this planet ... and we don't have any right to destroy all the ecosystems, just because they are not convenient to us ...
1 comment:
what a beautiful blog entry! this made me shed tears... reminds me how fragile our ecosystem is. And after reading the news last week about how the number of critically endangered animals is growing, the impact of this blog hit really deep.
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