page_title: Salmon
section_title: Commercial
hierarchical_section_title: Salmon / Wild fisheries / Commercial
caption_attribution_description: English: In the net! Angler &amp; Ghillie land a salmon from Loch Stack with Ben Arkle behind
context_page_description: Salmon is the common name for several species of ray-finned fish in the family Salmonidae. Other fish in the same family include trout, char, grayling and whitefish. Salmon are native to tributaries of the North Atlantic and Pacific Ocean. Many species of salmon have been introduced into non-native environments such as the Great Lakes of North America and Patagonia in South America. Salmon are intensively farmed in many parts of the world.
  Typically, salmon are anadromous: they hatch in fresh water, migrate to the ocean, then return to fresh water to reproduce. However, populations of several species are restricted to fresh water through their lives. Folklore has it that the fish return to the exact spot where they hatched to spawn. Tracking studies have shown this to be mostly true. A portion of a returning salmon run may stray and spawn in different freshwater systems; the percent of straying depends on the species of salmon. Homing behavior has been shown to depend on olfactory memory. Salmon date back to the Neogene.
context_section_description: As can be seen from the production chart at the left, the global capture reported by different countries to the FAO of commercial wild salmon has remained fairly steady since 1990 at about one million tonnes per year. This is in contrast to farmed salmon (below) which has increased in the same period from about 0.6 million tonnes to well over two million tonnes.
  Nearly all captured wild salmon are Pacific salmon. The capture of wild Atlantic salmon has always been relatively small, and has declined steadily since 1990. In 2011 only 2,500 tonnes were reported. In contrast about half of all farmed salmon are Atlantic salmon.
caption: Angler and gillie land a salmon, Scotland
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