Pink Salmon

The pink salmon is the smallest of the Pacific salmon species, native to coastal waters and rivers from California's Sacramento River north through the Bering Strait and west to Japan and Korea, with strict two-year odd- and even-year populations that never interbreed. Ocean-phase fish are silvery, but spawning males develop a pronounced back hump and a hooked, white-mouthed jaw with black gums, earning the nickname humpies. Females dig gravel nests called redds and lay one to two thousand eggs before dying within days of spawning, the single-reproduction life history typical of Pacific salmon. Average adults weigh around 2.2 kilograms.