Hosted by Professor Graham Alexander from the Wits School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences (APES) and Wits Alumni, Drake will focus on why salmon undertake massive ocean migrations before making the dramatic upstream river journeys for which they are famous, returning to their very place of birth to start the next generation.
Why swim 3,000km, leap up waterfalls, and run a gauntlet of predators when they could spawn in the ocean like most other fishes? Why only spawn once and then die? And while they are well-adapted to survive floods, volcanoes and lahars, they are not surviving the activities of modern humans.
The timber industry, agriculture, hydropower dams, industrial pollution and fisheries have been variously blamed for the loss of this resource, resulting in a combination of denial and finger-pointing amongst these groups. But who is really responsible, and what does the future hold for salmon?
To unravel the salmon on your plate, Drake will present the talk at 6pm in the Oppenheimer Life Sciences Building on Wits' Braamfontein East Campus.
For more information, go to www.wits.ac.za.
