Current Event 1

The Sockeye's Secret Compass


Millions of sockeye salmon flood to the Fraser river in British Columbia every summer. It has been known for years that a salmon can smell its way up the river to find its mating stream, but no one could explain how these fish find their way back from the open ocean, almost 4,000 or 5,000 miles away, back to the river. Now, research from Oregon State University has evidence that the sockeye are guided home by memories of the magnetic landscape of the river. Scientists discovered tiny iron crystals in the nose of rainbow trout, a close relative to the sockeye, that allow the fish to detect the magnetic field. Some people find it impossible that fish have evolved and developed compasses in their noses, but a sockeye only gets one chance to spawn and pass on their genes.

This event takes place every year along the coast of British Columbia.

This article relates to the social and economic PIEs because the fish who's spawn survives can carry on the sockeye population which helps the fishing economy.

This article made me think about adaptation and how to keep a population alive by changing and developing new technologies. I don't think that the government should become involved because it is a process of natural selection.