Fish & Water - Sounds Wild
Pond Smelt

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Pond smelt

The vast, open, treeless plain north of the Brooks Range is home to a number of rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean. On a summer day, there's a shimmer beneath the surface of one of these Arctic rivers. It's a school of fish, thin, silvery fish 7 or 8 inches long, that look a little like herring. They're smelt, related to herring, and this school of smelt is in fresh water. They're pond smelt, and like salmon, they're anadromous. They're born in fresh water, move downstream to the ocean as juveniles, and live in salt water for two or three years before returning to fresh water to spawn and die. Unlike salmon, which return to the natal stream where they were spawned, pond smelt don't home in on a specific river. They use rivers, streams and ponds in the general area where they were spawned that have the best habitat conditions.

Pond smelt spawn in river backwaters with little or no current, and near the shoreline of lakes and ponds. Eggs are broadcast and one female can lay up to 4,000 eggs. The fertilized eggs are sticky; they sink and adhere to whatever they touch. The eggs hatch in 11 to 24 days, depending on the water temperature, and the juveniles migrate to the ocean, seeking out river currents to carry them downstream. They grow to maturity in the sea, where they feed mainly on plankton. After two to three years at sea, they return as adults to spawn. Since stream water temperature affects the timing of the spawning migration, the number of spawning pond smelt returning to a particular stream varies from year to year. Some streams can have two separate but overlapping migrations.