The Salmon Cannon

[ed. Interesting alternative to traditional fish passes. One thing I'd wonder about is the loss of body 'slime', the coating that protects salmon from bacterial infection and premature tissue decomposition. Even careful handling can sometimes impact this natural defense mechanism.]

Salmon are amazing fish. They’ll swim hundreds of miles against the current, hurl themselves up waterfalls, and risk being eaten by bears as they return to their birthplace to spawn. But some obstacles are too much, and that’s where Whooshh Innovations comes in. Behold, the salmon cannon. Seriously, watch this video of fish getting launched out of pneumatic tubes.

Whooshh Innovations ("Whoosh" was already taken) first designed its tubes to transport fruit, but as Washington state debated what do about hydroelectric dams and the salmon whose migrations they blocked, the company saw its technology might have another purpose. If Whooshh tubes could send apples flying over long distances without damaging them, maybe, an employee thought, they could suck fish up and over the dams blocking the Columbia river. (...)

Washington's Columbia river is home to several enormous hydroelectric dams that prevent salmon from migrating to the ocean and back. Some smaller dams have fish ladders — basically slanted mazes that salmon can flop their way up, dodging the dam's turbines. But migration currently stops at the 236-foot-tall Chief Joseph dam, and behind that is Grand Coulee, at 550 feet. Ladders for these dams would be be long and prohibitively difficult for salmon to traverse.

Wildlife departments and public utilities already do strange things to get salmon past manmade barriers, putting them on trucks, loading them onto barges, and in a few cases, lifting them by helicopter. The tubes, Deligan says, could be a less labor-intensive and more effective method, plus it would be less traumatizing to the fish than getting caught and driven around on a truck.

by Josh Dzieza, The Verge | Read more:
Video: Whooshh via YouTube