... lives in the northern Pacific Ocean and rivers that drain into it. According to Wikipedia it's also known as the red salmon, kokanee salmon, blueback salmon, or simply the sockeye. While living in the ocean they are blue tinged with silver in colour, but when they return to spawning grounds their bodies become red and their heads turn green.
Sockeye can be up to 84 centimetres (2 feet 9 inches) in length, and weigh up to 7 kilograms (15 pounds). Two distinguishing features are their long, serrated gill rakers (bony projections from the gills, involved in feeding), which range from 30 to 40 in number, and the lack of a spot on their tail or back.
Approximately 65 million sockeye were eaten in 2010. This amounts to around 19% of the harvest of all Pacific salmon species by weight.
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