A Salmon’s Hard Journey through the Bonneville Dam

by Zachary McGahey

I went to a place where I saw fish struggling to get up the quick river rapids. Some of these fish were lying dead on the river bank. This place is called the Bonneville Dam. I learned that salmon travel for most of their lives, first to the ocean to grow up, and then back to spawn. I also learned that they have a tough journey going to the Pacific Ocean because the dam blocks their way and its sharp spinning turnbines kill them. People noticed this and the dam made a fish ladder to help the fish get to the ocean without having to go through the deadly turbines, but a lot of salmon still die. Because humans built the Bonneville Dam for our own needs of electricity and flood control, we’re harming the fish, and causing the fish to interact with the dam every day. The Bonneville Dam is now a large part of a salmon’s lifecycle.

The Bonneville Dam was built by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers from 1933 to 1937. The purpose of the dam is to create electricity. When the gateway in the dam opens and the water passes through, it hits the turbine, causing it to spin. There is copper that connects the turbine to the transformer, and the energy from the spinning turbine travels through the copper into the transformer. Once the transformer gets the signal it sends the electricity through the transmission lines and into our homes. The dam is good for us because it gives us electricity, but it is bad for the salmon because it makes it hard for them to reach the ocean.

The life of a salmon is difficult and they spend most of their lives traveling. When the baby salmon are born they are called alevin and they are in this stage for only a short time. They have a sac connected to their stomach which gives them nutrients, until they reach their next stage, which is called fry. In this stage they have to find food for themselves. After the fry stage, they become smolt, and have torpedo shaped bodies which make them faster, and make it easier to catch their food. After the smolt stage they become juveniles where they are almost as big as adults, but they still need to grow more. When they are adults they migrate to the ocean so that they can eat and fatten up. Once they have done this, they return to their homes in the river. They so this by remembering the smell of their home. When they come home, the male salmon grows humps on their backs, which are like armor, and their teeth get sharper. After this happens, the males start to fight against each other in order to spawn with the females. Once they spawn, the females dig a hole in the ground and lay their eggs and the male fertilize them. Then, the females bury the eggs and go on shore and die.

But the dam greatly affects a salmon’s life, making it even harder, because some of the salmon die before they can spawn. Because the dam kills a lot of salmon with its turbines, the fish ladder and fish hatchery were made. The fish ladder provides a small, but safe path for the salmon to get past the dam and to the ocean. In the hatchery people help hatch fish eggs and nurture the young salmon so they can grow up to be adults. Another way people are trying to help save salmon is by making the turbine blades duller so that when some of the salmon go through the turbines they won’t be cut up.

At the Bonneville Dam I learned that the dam was made for human needs of electricity. The dam makes our life easier, but makes a salmon’s life cycle a lot harder because it kills a lot of them when they migrate. By building the dam, we force fish to interact with it, and make it a part of their life cycle. We try to help them continue their life cycle by building the fish ladder and fish hatcheries, but a lot of salmon still die in those big turbines.