How to do the salmon dance
Factual or fishy? Fact-checking ‘The Salmon Dance’ for the song’s 15th anniversary
The year that delivered the iPhone, the microblogging site Tumblr and a long-awaited Best Directing Oscar for Martin Scorsese also saw the release of “The Salmon Dance” by the Chemical Brothers.
The English electronic duo of “Block Rockin’ Beats” and “Galvanize” fame released the second single off their sixth album on Sept. 10, 2007. The song, a modest hit in non-U.S. markets and basically a novelty song stateside, features a handful of robotically read salmon facts delivered by an in-song character named Sammy the Salmon alongside rap verses from Fatlip of legendary Hip-Hop group The Pharcyde and what music identification site Who Sampled IDs as a snippet of a Beethoven sonata.
To mark the 15th anniversary of the oddball song that has a little over 26 million streams on Spotify, the Juneau Empire caught up with Scott Forbes, commercial fisheries area management biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, to see if the salmon facts in “The Salmon Dance” scan as fishy or if they hold water.
The verdict?
“The quality of the salmon facts is very general but good,” Forbes said in an email, adding he planned to show the radio edit of the song to his girls. “Having an accurate educational discussion with a salmon while rapping about a new dance is awesome.”
However, according to Forbes there’s a lot of room to flesh out the bare-bones statements included on the song. Below are fun facts pulled from the song and extra context from Forbes to put a finer point on the generally accurate statements.
Sammy the Salmon statement: All my peeps spend part of their life in freshwater And part of their life in saltwater.
The extra context: Salmon are not people but are fish and although they share the same taxonomic phylum (Chordata), the five species of semelparous North American Pacific salmon are in the family Salmonidae and the genus Oncorhynchus. Chinook, sockeye, coho, pink, and chum salmon are anadromous fish meaning they hatch and migrate from freshwater to the ocean, where they gain 90% or more of their weight, and back to spawn in their natal streams.
Most Chinook, sockeye, and chum salmon spend multiple years in ocean environments before returning to freshwater to spawn, and most Chinook, sockeye, and coho salmon rear in freshwater for at least one year before migrating to the ocean.
Sammy the Salmon statement: We change ‘round a couple of days after spawning, then we die.
The extra context: Salmon undergo a physical transformation, with obvious color and body shape changes, when they transition from the ocean back to freshwater as adults. They can go several months without food during the freshwater spawning migration and their condition deteriorates as they use stored nutrients for energy and gonad (organs producing eggs and sperm) development. Some Taku River Chinook salmon enter the river as early as April and generally don’t arrive on the spawning grounds until late July or August after traveling hundreds of river miles. Nutrients from salmon carcasses are vitally important for maintaining aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems.
Sammy the Salmon statement: Most of our friends find their home waters by sense of smell, which is even more keen than that of a dog or a bear.
The extra context: Salmon can smell chemical odors down to one part per million and specific odors that young fish experience as they begin their downstream migration to the ocean are stored in the brain and used years later as adults when attempting to return to their natal streams. This imprinting is successfully used by hatcheries around Southeast Alaska, such as DIPAC (Douglas Island Pink and Chum, Inc.), causing salmon to return to various release sites – consider Chinook salmon to Fish Creek Pond, coho salmon to Sheep Creek, or chum salmon to Amalga Harbor.
Sammy the Salmon statement: My family also rely on ocean currents, tides (and the) gravitational pull of the moon.
The extra context: Salmon navigation in the open ocean is not completely understood, but environmental cues such as day length, the sun’s position, the earth’s magnetic field, and water salinity and temperature gradients likely give them information about position and direction of travel.
The degree to which salmon use these cues is likely due to situational factors like the species, geographic location, and oceanographic conditions like currents and tides. A new collaborative effort, the International Year of the Salmon, is attempting to unravel some of these open ocean salmon migration mysteries. Check it out here: https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/west-coast/science-data/2022-pan-pacific-winter-high-seas-expedition.
Sammy the Salmon statement: Did you know…that I could go to Japan and back?
The extra context: The known ocean ranges of many North American and Asian salmon are broadly overlapping with genetic research on chum salmon demonstrating that Asian fish extend farther eastward than North American fish extend westward into the Pacific Ocean. The westernmost known range of Alaska-origin Pacific salmon is much closer to Japan than Southeast Alaska.
Sammy the Salmon statement: Polluted water can kill both baby salmon that are developing.
And the adult salmon that are on their way to spawn.
The extra context: Clean water begets healthy salmon runs and introduced toxins can cause a multitude of direct and indirect adverse effects in salmon at all life stages. Although Southeast Alaska is fortunate to have minimal human development and thousands of miles of intact streams and rivers, there are examples of freshwater pollution in our own “backyard” with a long-abandoned copper-lead-zinc mine discharging toxic acidic wastewater into the Taku River watershed just above the U.S./Canada border since 1957. The ocean is a gigantic mixing zone and effects of relatively new problems like microplastics on salmon are unknown. Recent fisheries disasters, like that declared for 2020 Southeast Alaska salmon fisheries, involve a host of causative agents with climate change likely playing a significant role. There is much to learn about the impact of climate change on salmon and fortunately salmon have evolved in a dynamic environment that has produced a high degree of variability and therefore resilience.
Maintaining water quality can give salmon the edge they need to utilize this resilience.
• Contact Ben Hohenstatt at (907)308-4895 [email protected].
Stream The Chemical Brothers - The Salmon Dance (The Beatangers & Boogie Vice Remix) by BEATANGERS
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published on Following the success of "Get Up Everybody EP" with "What's That Sound" hitting the #1 position on the Beatport Top 100 Indie Dance / Nu Disco for more than two months, we are happy to introduce our fellow producer www.soundcloud.com/boogievice by offering you an exclusive remix of "The Salmon Dance" originally from The Chemical Brothers.
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Danube salmon - a 1.5 meter monster under threat
- Nick Thorpe
- BBC News, Ljubljana
Image copyright Other
"He's very fast, sleek and elegant. And very handsome," says Ulrich Eickelmann. He could talk like that about a racing car. But in fact, the director of environmental group Riverwatch is talking about the Danube salmon.
This fish, which can reach the size of a human, lives for about 30 years. Despite the well-established name, the main refuge of the Danube salmon today is in the Balkans, in streams and rivers between Slovenia and Montenegro.
But even this, the last habitat of the Danube salmon, is under threat due to the construction of dams.
Photo credit, Other
Image caption,A 25 kg salmon is on display at the Museum of Hunting and Fishing in Munich
"We Europeans cry out indignantly about the plight of tigers in Asia and demand to save them," says Eickelmann, as we walk through swampy forest to the banks of the Sava river in Slovenia. “However, we do not seem to care about the threat to our own tigers, the Danube salmon.”
Ahead, a man with a white bucket walks cautiously among the snowdrops. In the bucket are five thin blue-green-gray-white-silver creatures about 40 cm long, each of which is three years old, tossing and turning in a narrow space, like teenagers on a dance floor, anticipating soon freedom.
We are approaching a rocky shore. And within minutes it was done. Fish overtaking each other in freedom, zigzags swim through the shallow water towards the rapids.
"These fish could be indicators of the health of our rivers," explains Stephen Weiss, an American scientist based in the Austrian city of Graz, who co-authored a new study warning that new dams could kill fish.
Specific environment
Photo author, Other
Photo caption,One of the last habitats for the Danube salmon is the Sava River
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Danube salmon need a lot of space in rivers with clear water and strong currents and a very specific environment to support their population.
I first saw these fish in the garden of Joseph Fischer, located next to the Danube in the Austrian Wachau region, several years ago.
Fischer is a winemaker and fisherman who raises thousands of fish in artificial ponds among his vineyards.
There is a special pond for fish, which is still a few months old: big-eyed creatures cut through the water, like arrows flying into the sky in slow motion.
I watched him partially drain the pond, where a beautiful female was lying quietly. He carefully carried her to a blue container, put her to sleep by dissolving sleeping pills in water, and then, with skillful farmer's hands, ran several times the entire length of her body, trying to extract the eggs.
If he succeeded, then he had to get a large male from another pond to fertilize the eggs. However, this time he failed. He accepted it with courage.
"Next year I'll be back to the tried and tested method. Now I have enough fish already," he said.
In fact, about 10 thousand, according to his estimates. Each year it releases several thousand into the Danube, repopulating the river with fish that once migrated up and downstream in large numbers.
Princes and princesses of the Balkans
Photo credit, Other
Photo caption,Joseph Fischer with one of his fish
several interconnected lakes.
"I haven't eaten these fish in 10 years. I like them too much," confesses Fischer.
On the Sava River, Weiss explains how salmon breed in the wild. The female finds an area in the river bed that she likes, the male follows along, they dance together, sweeping away small grains of gravel to clear a place for eggs.
After the male has fertilized the eggs by releasing the seed in a sudden underwater cloud, the female sweeps a thin layer of sand with her tail. In about a month, small fish should appear. Princes and princesses of the Balkans.
90,000 cocktails, food and music from the Boiler house - “Food” cocktails, food and music from the boiler room - “Food”Garden of food Golden thousand
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What they drink, what they eat and what they dance to
Author
Ksenia Lesnaya
Photographer
Provided by the Kotelnaya bar
There are many different bars in Moscow - for dancing, for stag parties, for vodka until the morning, and so on.
The Kotelnaya bar, which is located on the territory of the Depot, on Lesnaya, managed to occupy a separate niche in the bar system and become a universal place for any occasion.
First of all, it is very beautiful here. Even if you don't drink or are hungry, come here just for the sake of it, at least for a cup of tea. A cinematic interior with deep velvet armchairs, a shimmering bar and a luxurious staircase in the center already distracts from everyday life: you want to put on a dress or at least straighten your back and feel like a character in a movie about the Art Deco era. Beauty was invented by the architect Sergei Pokrovsky, who also made Simachev and Noor Bar.
Secondly, the excellent chef Dmitry Pogorelov, who once started with Dmitry Zotov, is engaged in local cuisine. Usually bars are rarely associated with serious food. Immediately, the opposite is true, and you need to go to the "Kotelnaya" for lunch and dinner, even if you are not interested in alcohol.
Thirdly, "Kotelnaya" is a rare cocktail bar where they mix things that others never dreamed of. The bar was organized by Marat Saddarov from Noor, and for the sake of the local "Gimlet" or "Sazerak" you can safely drive half of Moscow.
Fourth, the Boiler Room is dancing. Everyone dances, dances until the morning, interrupted by an Espresso martini or a pastrami sandwich with stracciatella.
To try to imagine how one of the most beautiful bars in Moscow lives, make yourself two cocktails (recipe attached below), salmon ceviche with shiso sauce and kumquat (recipe is also below), put on a dress with a bare back or butterfly and start dancing. Playlist at the end of the article.
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Violet 75 Cocktail
A twist on the classic French 75 cocktail: a mix of gin, violet liqueur, passion fruit syrup, lemon juice and prosecco turns out to be a light summer story, almost alcoholic lemonade.
Recipe
Drinks Author's kitchen
3 0 7
Author: Food
5 Ingredients 5 minutesPaloma HighBall
Calls of the Inhells, Black Social Comfort liquor.
Recipe
Drinks Author's kitchen
1 0 5
Author: Food
4 Ingredients 5 minutesSevice with Sawso Suso and Kumkvat
9000 , tinted with lemon juice and soy sauce. In general, this is a riot of tastes and associations with a hot summer evening somewhere on the coast.Recipe
Main dishes Author's cuisine
1 0 11
Author: Food
15 Ingredients 20 minutes
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02.20.2021
Everywhere life
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