Salmon are a uniquely useful species for vibrant and healthy forest ecosystems. As young hatchlings and fry, they consume relatively little in the way of food resources in the waters of their birth or as they travel downstream to the ocean. Then, after spending years in the ocean, effectively gathering up proteins and becoming themselves large swimming bags of amino acids and other nutrients from the sea, they return with all those nutrients to the upper reaches of the rivers whence they came, where they die, bringing all those fresh proteins to regions where they become essential
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