salmon in seattle

we went to see salmon spawning in piper's creek at carkeek park today. what a strange thing to observe. the natives probably don't find it unusual, but i sure did. rarely do urban folks get to witness wildlife in their natural environment on such a large scale.

the salmon are just starting to spawn at this particular site, and already there were several carcasses in various states of decay. i can't imagine what its gonna look like (and smell like) there in a month or so. we saw a couple who were really active and pushing upstream. i kept asking sean questions about the whole thing, but he didn't really seem to know. i guess all of his childhood field trips to the hatcheries didn't really leave an imprint.

it was interesting and quite sad to watch all of these animals at the end of their lives. sean took A LOT of pictures, but this is by far the coolest...