1. Headwaters

Our BC Forest Headwaters exhibit shows a waterfall and a spawning pool where salmon would lay their eggs in gravel nests called redds. The female salmon makes the redd by lying on her side and waving her caudal fin. Once the eggs are laid and fertilized, she then waves her caudal fin to cover the eggs protecting them from predators. Exactly how salmon find their way around the ocean and back to their stream to spawn is still a mystery. Scientists think they have a sense of where they are on earth (magnetic compass) and what season it is (star compass) to help them get back to the coast from way out in the ocean. When they get much closer to the coast, salmon can smell their stream. Not only can they find the same stream they were born in by smell, they can also find the same distance up that stream so they lay their eggs in the same area that they were born in!

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