Fishing with Rod Discussion Forum
Fishing in British Columbia => General Discussion => Topic started by: SnaggedADuck on September 15, 2008, 09:39:26 PM
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Do pacific salmon cross breed at all? coho - spring - pink for example physically look similiar. I read some fellow mention springs and pinks crossing to be a pinook but i didnt know if that was a joke.
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I dont know if different species cross bread. The only fish I know of that cross bread are white and red springs. This is why the Vedder gets "marble springs."
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I dont know if different species cross bread. The only fish I know of that cross bread are white and red springs. This is why the Vedder gets "marble springs."
Hey, ED, whoever told you that story was pulling your leg. Marbled chinook are not the result of red and white springs' 'interbreeding'.
The phenomenon of different coloration has to do with the absorption of carotenoid pigments.
I recently asked a fishery biologist about these fish and he told me that marbled springs are in reality your usual chinook salmon that have a recessive genetic feature, something about having limited ability to absorb carotenoids, specifically astaxanthin, which is found in shrimp, krill and many other salmon food sources. The result is a fish with some red flesh (usually closer to the backbone) and some white flesh (usually towards the edges).
Red-fleshed springs process this carotenoid pigment without any problem, and as a result, their flesh is nicely coloured throughout.
White-fleshed springs, OTOH, can't absorb astaxanthin at all - resulting in the white flesh. White chinook are actually quite rare out of BC. AFAIK, only the Harrison run (transplanted to the Vedder) has a predominantly white population.
Curiously, white-fleshed chinook are VERY much in demand in the US because they are rare - they constitute only about 1 percent of the total chinook population. It seems that some high end restaurants in the US are willing to pay premium prices for white-fleshed chinook, or as they call them "ivory kings".
This "marbling' of salmon flesh is mostly found in chinook salmon, but it has been observed in other species, particularly chum, albeit on a much lower scale. I have yet to undig a picture of a chum I caught in the Squamish a couple years ago. One fillet was almost white, the other was as red as that of a coho.
Anyway, to make a long story short, marbled-fleshed springs are marbled because of a genetic predisposition, not because they had one red and one white parent. ;)
Cheers,
Milo
edited to add: red, white, or marbled - they are the same species!
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its all in the marketing :o
cnm
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Just for info, there is quite a lot of cross breeding between coarse fish in the UK and Europe. Roach/rudd/bream regularly interbreed as do carp and goldfish. It has now reached the stage where the British Record Fish Committee are looking at introducing DNA testing of fish to verify their true identity when claiming a record. I don't see any reason why it should be any different for the salmon and trout varieties when they are spawning together.
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Anyway, to make a long story short, marbled-fleshed springs are marbled because of a genetic predisposition, not because they had one red and one white parent. ;)
Actually, to be marble you need to have one white allele (call it W) from a parent and one red (call it R) from another (unless there is some recurent mutation going on, which may happen from time to time).
a red fish has a genotypes RR, a white fish is WW, and a marble fish is WR. So a marble fish either have a red and a white parent (all the offsprings are marble), one marble parent and one white parent (1/2 of the offspring is marble, the other half is white), or one red parent and one marble parent (1/2 of the offspring is marble and 1/2 is red), two marble parents (1/4 red, 1/4 white, and 1/2 marble).
You are right, it is some intraspecific polymorphism.
Talking about hybridization, it seems that there is some rare natural hybridization between cohos and chinooks and between chums and pinks.
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One hybrid that I remember seeing was the Pinook... A cross between a pink and a chinook.
(http://www.hawkinsflyfishing.com/gallery/Garden_River_Salmon20.jpg)
Cheers,
Nicole
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One hybrid that I remember seeing was the Pinook... A cross between a pink and a chinook.
For some reason they have more of those in some parts of the Great Lakes.
Thank to everyone for the info on Whites/Marbles.
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Hey milo, I believe the scientist who told you that this is genetic could be right. Partially.
I was VERY interested in this "MARBLE MEAT" thing. There was a post on this already.
This is my first season on the Vedder in September so I was curious.
Here is what I concluded.
I've been catching spings on the Vedder for the past 3 weekends regularly and always bringing home a couple, 1 adult and 1 or 2 jacks.
Now 3 weeks ago the fish I caught were almost purely red meat, little tinge of white or none.
Suddenly 2 weeks ago they are turning whiter and whiter. Even jacks. All from the same spot on the river. They all look chrome from the outside.
I had the misfortune of trying one of these half and half springs and they taste like garbage. The red portion tastes somewhat ok and the white is GARBAGE.
BASICALLY THESE FISH ARE SPOILING AND AS THEY ARE GOING BAD THEIR MEAT IS WHITER AND WHITER.
Show me an ocean caught marble spring...
They are all red springs that are going bad and should not be eaten, as far as I am concerned.
I felt bad for killing these fish.
This year the runs are late and these springs are the red springs you would usually catch in July and August.
I believe guys that sleep on the Vedder know this and they don't catch these fish.
Now it may be that as they are spending more time in the river they absorb less and less pigment as you suggest from their food.
But that is probably because there is no food in the river that they mostly feed on. Herring, krill, squid, shrimp etc.
Now my conclusion may be wrong,
but I will leave the springs for the bears..
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One hybrid that I remember seeing was the Pinook... A cross between a pink and a chinook.
(http://www.hawkinsflyfishing.com/gallery/Garden_River_Salmon20.jpg)
Cheers,
Nicole
how would you identify a pinook? has completely black mouth with an enormous pink hump?
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BASICALLY THESE FISH ARE SPOILING AND AS THEY ARE GOING BAD THEIR MEAT IS WHITER AND WHITER.
This weekned I got a white jack spring AND a marble jack spring. Both jacks still had sea lice on them. These sea lice will usually fall off the fish within 48 hours of entering fresh water. Also sea lice tend to change colour when they come from salt water in the fresh water, turning from clear (in salt) to a darker colour in the fresh water. Both of these fish had CLEAR sea lice on them. So unless fish start spoiling in the ocean too, these are a unique breed or speices, whatever the case may be.
I also got a red the same day. The red was no where near as clean as the jacks (but still was completely chrome) and had bright orange/red meat just like a coho would. It was in the river way longer than the jacks were but the meat was still red, so by your theory the meat should be white or going white.
Thanks Milo for the correction, learned something new today :D
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I have cought a coho/spring in the chehalis river
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mmmmroe caught a chinook/coho on the chehalis last season too.
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BASICALLY THESE FISH ARE SPOILING AND AS THEY ARE GOING BAD THEIR MEAT IS WHITER AND WHITER.
Show me an ocean caught marble spring...
Sorry, Adriaticum, but you conclusions are erroneous.
If you come to my house, I will show you not one, but two ocean caught marbles. They are cut in steaks, however.
IronNoggin, who is a Marine biologist and was our guide on my recent ocean trip out of Ucluelet, was the skipper that got us into those fish.
If he reads this, he will confirm to you that yes, indeed, there are marbled springs in the ocean (as there are whites among mostly reds).
The reason you are finding more and more whites in the Vedder is that this is a different strain making its way into the river - its' the fall fish, as opposed to early spring fish, which are predominantly red, and mostly done by now. The whites are Harrison fish which were hatchery introduced to the Vedder. And this particular strain is famous (or infamous) for its white flesh. If you intercept one of these fish in the Charlottes, it will still be white.
Also, the red springs have different degrees of redness, varying from very intense, almost coho-like orange, to a subtle light pink.
It has nothing to do with spoiling, but with how well they absorb carotenoids. Also, the diet of the fish dictates to an extent how red they will be Granted, it may be true that a red-fleshed spring might not be as intense red after spawning, but it WON'T turn white.
I hope this clears up your confusion.
Cheers,
Milo
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Thanks Milo,
your argument is convincing, especially if you have caught them in the ocean and they are marbled.
After long searching I finally did find one article that adds to your argument and shows a picture of a marbled chinook and explaining that they come from our waters.
http://www.slowfoodusa.org/index.php/programs/ark_product_detail/washington_marbled_chinook_salmon/
Unfortunately they taste awful.
Cheers,
Adriaticum
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Unfortunately they taste awful.
Nonsense!
Marbled Springs taste delicious-as Milo or anyone who has caught one can tell you.
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Didn't mean those caught in the ocean!
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Marble is the best tasting salmon for sashimi for me. Caught one years back and still craving for another catch but none since. Sigh. Welcome a trade with any one for my Fraser caught red spring. ;)
Just to add some spice to the discussion, hehe. It is quite a mystery of nature. Why is it that fish don't naturally cross breed, even between close relatives like white & red springs? Considering that their eyes cannot see their own body and there is no mirror to check its own shape & form, how the heck fish can pick out which partner is the right one to go to bed with? ;D ;D ;D I mean, how does a silver coho doe say to another silver jack spring (of similar size) that he is not wanted but a buck coho will do? Perhaps science guys like Rodney & Milo can enlight us. ;D
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Unfortunately they taste awful.
Adriaticum
My only explanation for your comment above is that you haven't really had the opportunity to catch a good white spring. It doesn't surprise me.
White springs caught in the Vedder are not exactly the best tasting fish in the frying pan or on the BBQ. But I garantee that there will be many people who will tell you that they taste pretty good when they are smoked (as long as they haven't reached the 'boot' stage - in which case, regardless of their coloration, they will taste foul.
Interestingly enough (and this is something that just dawned upon me), it appears that white-fleshed chinook do degrade more rapidly in the river than their red or marbled brethren. Could it be that the pigment carotenoid serves as a natural 'preserver' - allowing red fleshed salmon to conserve the quality of their meat for a longer time than those fish that lack it entirely (white springs)? I don't have an answer to this one, but based on empirical evidence (perfect tasting white chinook are hard to find in rivers), it might as well be true. I have had the opportunity to score a white chinook in the ocean and the taste was perfect. I have also caught a few white springs in the Fraser, with mixed results as to the flavour of the flesh. I do remember one fish I caught last year - it was memorable - 32 pounds of pure eating heaven. :)
Vedder whites? It would have to be an exceptionally fresh fish and my freezer exceptionally empty for me to kill one to eat it fresh (i.e. not smoked).
All I can say, Adriaticum, don't discard whites or marbles yet. Chances are if you get to catch one in the ocean or the Fraser, it will be fine tasting tablefare.
Why is it that fish don't naturally cross breed, even between close relatives like white & red springs?
I don't think you can talk about crossbreeding among red and white chinooks, as they are the same species. They do mix, as per frenchy's post above (reply # 5). However, not all the offspring will necessarily be marbled, only those that inherit the genetic predisposition from the white parent.
As to the second part of your query, Steelhawk, I am sure that if different species of salmon share a common spawning ground, there will be some attempts at interbreeding, but mother nature has mechanisms in place to prevent eggs from one species to become fertilized with eggs from another. To draw a parallel, in theory, a human can have intercourse with an ape, but no offspring will result from it. Why? The two species, in spite of the similarity in their DNA, are just too different for the miracle of life to take place. The mechanism is too complicated to explain in detail here, but essentially, it comes down to a difference in the number of chromosomes - plus a bunch of other variables. (Genetics is not exactly my forte :-[)
Now someone might ask about the "Liger" (cross between lion and tiger) or the mule (cross between an horse and a donkey). Although interbreeding among these species does (rarely) result in offspring, those offspring can not produce other offspring, which effectively impedes the creation and perpetutation of a species. Therefore, ligers, mules, tigons, hinnys, and other offspring resulting from interspecies breeding, are not considered new species but rather hybrids.
All that said, it could be that there is the occasional hybrid stemming from different salmon species interbreeding (as the aforementioned pinook), but I will bet dollars to donuts that they cannot produce other pinooks. If they did, we would have a distinct species by now. Mother Nature has its mysterious and fascinating ways to decide when and where a new species will evolve. And that process is much more complicated than just crossbreeding. It takes millions of years of evolution, of adapting to the environment, of competing against existing species and so on. The process is called natural speciation, and you can learn more about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciation
Ok now. The teacher is tired, and I still got 18 essays to correct for tomorrow. And it's not about fish. :(
Tight lines,
Milo
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Thanks again Milo, your input is greatly appreciated.
I guess I was lucky with my first batch of springs and they tasted great and then 2nd, 3rd batches were getting progressively worse.
I was noticing that the redness in their meat was dissapearing as the time went by. And the taste was going south.
Wondered why they went bad so quickly and I was cathing them on the same river, same spot just 1 and 2 weeks later.
Must have caught the 1st batch early just as they started showing on the Vedder.
I did quite a bit of research on that and nothing really made sense.
On another note my last name starts with Milo and ends with ic,
ain't that funny ;)
Cheers,
Adriaticum
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You are welcome, Mr. Milo---ic! ;D
Guessing from your handle name, you must be of Serbian and/or Croatian origin, as am I.
If so...bistro! Vidimo se na vodi!
Pozdrav,
Milo (Ilic)
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Actually in genetics if red spring = RR and white spring = WW You need to know if it's really single loci that's controlling or is it double loci? And is RR dominant and WW recesive or v.s.?
Because if one is dominant and the other is recesive than really when you cross the two you'll get RR RW WR WW in which case you'll get 75% red spring and 25% white spring. Though RW and WR has white gene but since it's recesive it won't show.
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Too complicated already, but just to add to your enigma: what if it turns out that RWs or WRs actually can't pass the depigmentation trait directly to their offspring, requiring a WW partner to do so?
If there's ever a DNA study on this, I volunteer to catch the specimens and leave the science of it to biologists.
I'd rather be fishin'! ;D
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Red springs in the Stamp system color up quickly.
Were these fish used as brood stock for the early Chilliwack Reds??
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Too complicated already, but just to add to your enigma: what if it turns out that RWs or WRs actually can't pass the depigmentation trait directly to their offspring, requiring a WW partner to do so?
If there's ever a DNA study on this, I volunteer to catch the specimens and leave the science of it to biologists.
I'd rather be fishin'! ;D
In assumption if W is of a recessive trait then in order for RW or WR to produce white spring WW then you either have RW and RW (WR) resulting in RR, RW, WR, WW, which is a 25% chance of getting white spring. OR, you can do RW (WR) with WW then the result is RW, RW, WW, WW, which is 50% chance of getting white spring.
Yap like you said, I would rather be catching them then trying to figure this out. ;)
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how would you tell if its a cross visually?
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http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/pacificnw/2004/1024/taste.html
Although not directly related to the discussion at hand about marbled salmon, Milo's comment of ivory salmon prompted me to share this dated, but interesting, article about the table-worthiness of white springs
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how would you tell if its a cross visually?
If you are referring to how you can tell whether a chinook is marbled before you cut it, you can't. It is a lottery.
However, I have been testing a theory lately, and I would like to ask members for input on this one.
All springs have white beliies in the ocean, and it is pretty darn impossible to determine what colour their flesh is unless you kill them and cut them.
However, I have found that red springs in rivers tend to get a sort of a "copperish" tinge to their bellies. Whites, OTOH, get a sort of a greyish tinge to their bellies instead. I have been able to determine the colour of a river caught chinook's flesh with close to 100% accuracy lately. All this, of course, applies to fresh fish which is still more or less chrome on the outside. Boots are easily identifiable, as red springs become of a brown-brick colour, whereas whites turn all sorts of shades of olive, gray - even black (yuck!).
Please keep this in mind and let me know if my theory has any validity.
Thanks,
Milo
Red springs in the Stamp system color up quickly.
Were these fish used as brood stock for the early Chilliwack Reds??
Nope, the early Chilliwack red springs are Upper Fraser fish broodstock.
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Milo-I believe what you're seeing is sometimes called a 'suntan' and can be seen on the side of the fish if the light is right-the flat monochromatic light conditions we often live under are sometimes difficult.
However examining the flesh just behind the gill plate shows the colour of the meat (with the reddest and whitest fish) as you've posted there are many colour variations to be found a person can still be fooled.
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Actually in genetics if red spring = RR and white spring = WW You need to know if it's really single loci that's controlling or is it double loci? And is RR dominant and WW recesive or v.s.?
Because if one is dominant and the other is recesive than really when you cross the two you'll get RR RW WR WW in which case you'll get 75% red spring and 25% white spring. Though RW and WR has white gene but since it's recesive it won't show.
Oh it is single loci, it is established and heterozygotes are marble fish. I do not know why heterozygotes are marbled and not pinkish (intermediate between red and white), but it may be because one allele or the other is expressed in one particular muscular fiber or it may have something to do with the diffusion of the pigment in the tissue.
Concerning why white fish spoil faster than red fish. I asked that to Nog (we have the same source Milo) and he told me that's because white fish have a higher fat content, so the gene responsible for carotenoid fixation may also be implied in fat metabolism. But I am not a biochemist, so I cannot give any more answer about that.
I know a bit more about reproductive isolation and speciation (I work on this biological process). It would be a bit too long to develop it here, but would be happy to talk about it around a beer... But to start you can think that the different species have different spawing time and location, probably different spawning behavior and sexual characteristics (the spawning colors for example) and probably also some genetic incompatibilities (even if you have hybrid offspring, they may not be viable or may be sterile).
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i was refering to a positivly identifying a pinook or coho cross. As far as checking under the gill plate for springs, that has failed me in the past. I have caught jacks and it looks red or marble and then you end up with white. I read about checking the flesh at the anal and it seems to work better but people look at you weird when you catch a fish and inspect the anal.... :-\
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I will do the study, all you have to do is give me a couple of each...
2 red, 2 marble, and 2 smoked whites. I will be in vancouver over the weekend ;)
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sorry to bring this up but I found this cool picture I thought I'd share...
(http://www.aww-kittah-aww.com/up/files/1142/IMG_7072.JPG)
Anyone care to guess what it is? 8)
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looks like a sock
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Looks straight up like a sockey, but if I had to guess, under the assumption its s hybrid, I'd say pink/sockeye cross. The head is a little pink-shaped (although sockeye and pink are similar), the scales look smaller than sockeye and a more like pink-size.
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Coho/pink cross? Still say it looks like a straight up sockeye too though, maybe a sock/coho?
Also saw a coho/chinook landed out on the Island 3 weeks ago.
White gums/black mouth, blood red meat. Heavily spotted springs spots down the back and whole tail yet a very dark/square tail.
I could'nt decide what it was, at first I thought chinook for sure just by the body shape and head but it had ALOT of coho characteristics as well.
Shoulda grabbed a picture...
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Sorry, but why does the movie Deliverance come to mind...... ;D
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Its actually a "chumpie" a cross between a chum and a pink ;)
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Sorry, but why does the movie Deliverance come to mind...... ;D
LMAO http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uzae_SqbmDE
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If you are referring to how you can tell whether a chinook is marbled before you cut it, you can't. It is a lottery.
However, I have been testing a theory lately, and I would like to ask members for input on this one.
All springs have white beliies in the ocean, and it is pretty darn impossible to determine what colour their flesh is unless you kill them and cut them.
However, I have found that red springs in rivers tend to get a sort of a "copperish" tinge to their bellies. Whites, OTOH, get a sort of a greyish tinge to their bellies instead. I have been able to determine the colour of a river caught chinook's flesh with close to 100% accuracy lately. All this, of course, applies to fresh fish which is still more or less chrome on the outside. Boots are easily identifiable, as red springs become of a brown-brick colour, whereas whites turn all sorts of shades of olive, gray - even black (yuck!).
Please keep this in mind and let me know if my theory has any validity.
Thanks,
Milo
Nope, the early Chilliwack red springs are Upper Fraser fish broodstock.
My understanding they are Bowron River fish.