Yung Sen Wu
Pacific Red Sockeye, 2018
Adams River, British Columbia, Canada
Category - Life Under the Surface
Each year in September and October, Pacific sockeye salmon leave the ocean and return to their birthplace to spawn and die. When they mature (at about 4 years of age), a genetic signal sends them out of the North Pacific towards the mouth of the Fraser River on the west coast of Canada. This journey of a few days is only the beginning of their epic: to find their way back, they detect the salinity of the estuary and the temperature of the river, until they recognise the environment of their native waterway. They will travel about 800 kilometres in three months, without feeding. When they arrive at their spawning grounds, exhausted, the salmon reproduce and die. The mission of a lifetime.
12-24 mm f/4 Lens - 1/160 sec at f/16 ISO 200