East Alsek sockeye salmon in full spawning color. NPS / C. Murdoch. Rich in Salmon. Adult salmon are unparalleled contributors to Glacier Bay National Park’s ecosystems. Much like small schooling fishes, salmon feed a diversity of other animals and are particularly unique because they link marine, freshwater and terrestrial habitats. Salmon are anadromous, which means they migrate upriver from the sea to spawn in their birth streams after spending 1 to 5 years maturing in the marine environment. Some salmon increase their body weight 1000 times at sea. When they return to their natal stream to spawn and die, salmon bring all the marine derived nutrients they consumed in the ocean back to their freshwater streams. These nutrients feed and fertilize aquatic plants, insects, and other organisms, and ultimately provide food for their own offspring. Salmon fertilize the forest too. Bears, otters, mink, eagles, and other forest animals feast on adult salmon, often leaving their carcasses half eaten and decomposing...bathing the forest with ocean nutrients.