BBC Countryfile Magazine

SALMON FACT FILE

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1. Salmon and brown trout (above) are so closely related that they can sometimes hybridise and weirdly, those hybrids can be fertile. This happens more on some rivers than others.

2. Salmon skin contains magnetite, a magnetic mineral, that may account for their unerring navigation­al skills.

3. Once a salmon enters freshwater it stops feeding. Salmon that return in spring must survive until the winter to spawn.

4. Most salmon die after spawning, but a few survive and there is evidence that these fish (‘kelts’) escort the younger fish on the start of their migration.

5. Young salmon are fiercely territoria­l but can recognise their own siblings by scent and will tolerate them more than salmon to whom they are not related.

6. The River Thames was once one of the greatest salmon rivers in Europe. Legend has it that Henry III kept a polar bear in the Tower of London and trained it to catch salmon. 7. The biggest salmon ever caught on rod and

line in Britain weighed 64lbs. It was caught by Miss Georgina Ballantine on the River Tay in 1923 and weighed more than half as much as she did!

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