Migration Casualty

The salmon have begun to run, swimming in from the sea to fight their way back to their place of birth. I was walking the trail beside the Deschutes river today, between the upper and lower Tumwater Falls. There is a hatchery at the falls so salmon swim up that river every year. Below the lower falls the water is calm and it was easy to see the fish swimming around. I don't know how they ever manage to get up the raging river. By this point they are pretty beaten up and ragged looking. And some, as you can see from this photo, never reach their goal.