Mother Salmon In Dillon Creek
Dara Soto

     She moves fluidly, with the grace of a dancer despite the fact she is dying. A portion of her back, a graying silver piece of flesh, pokes out from the surface of the shallow water. Dillon Creek is crystal clear this last day of October. From my vantage point on the rocky bank, I can see her entire exhausted body through the water. Her redd is quite distinguishable; the mounds of cleaned off gravel arranged in a row.  Her precious pink eggs are hidden in the rocks to protect them from predators and the elements. She eyes me nervously with her watery lenses and continues to guard her babies with her scaly body strategically positioned over the redd. Back and forth, back and forth…...it is the relentless activity of a brooding mother protecting her young. The soft flesh now hangs from her battered skeleton; the result of her long journey to this spot from the ocean. How many logs, boulders, and culverts did she encounter to cause this damage? How did she manage to travel to this place, probably her birthplace, after so many years of being in the ocean? Her ripped up tail is almost all bones—I can count how many are left as it sticks up out of the water. This ragged tail is the badge of honor for all spawning female salmon—the tell-tale sign of good nest making. She stays over her eggs despite my presence. She stays there even though there are bears, eagles, and osprey. She stays there despite her decaying body which is weak and failing. Last bursts of energy are spent chasing away the hungry little steelhead trying to sneak into the redd to gobble up her eggs. It is a mother’s last ditch effort to take care of her babies before the final throb of energy leaves her. There won’t be anyone to protect the eggs after she breathes her last breath. Nobody will care as much as she does.

     This so-called “primitive” fish gives everything she has for the success of her young. It is impressive that in her condition she remembers to stay there at all! Even more remarkable is the fact that she will never see these eggs hatch or see her salmon fry swim. Why should she care then? What makes her stay there as her body slowly, painfully disintegrates? As a biologist I want to ramble off facts about increased fitness, the passing of genetic information, or instinctual survival mechanisms. But now as I approach                      Bearfoot Painting by Sarah Hugdahl
motherhood, I have to say that the only explanation is that it must be love. Only pure love could keep a being there as she takes her final breaths and feels her body and mind painfully wrenched from her. No other reason seems like it could be strong enough. A pregnant woman doesn’t even see her baby until it is born in the ninth (or sometimes tenth!) month. What keeps her eating right, exercising, and shoving down disgusting prenatal vitamins for almost a year? The baby hasn’t even been born yet! What is this love that knows no face, body, or spirit? Perhaps it is a universal phenomenon, a common thread that connects all species. Beings simply want something to care about. We are all bound through our common bond to care—for our young, for others. It doesn’t matter what we look like; furry, scaly, fleshy, etc. Nor is it important whether we live on land, in the air, or in the water.  We are all intertwined to each other through the ability to care for others. Now some will argue that salmon are hardly capable of thinking, let alone caring. I mean come on, they would say, the fish has a brain smaller than the size of a pea! But I ask you this—imagine taking your last few breaths. Would or could your final thought be of others?

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