Definitions

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  • noun Plural form of smolt.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • As these fragile young fish, known as smolts, run the gauntlet past the fish-farm cages conveniently placed on their migration routes down the sea lochs towards the open sea, they are ambushed by the unnaturally high concentrations of lice.

    You're so wrong about salmon, Mr Salmond | Andrew Flitcroft 2011

  • The young wild fish, known as smolts, which migrate from the rivers to the sea each spring, cannot cope with more than the odd louse yet now must run the gauntlet past the fish-farm cages on their migration routes.

    Scotland's wild salmon face 'calamity' from trade deal with China 2011

  • The young wild fish, known as smolts, which migrate from the rivers to the sea each spring, cannot cope with more than the odd louse yet now must run the gauntlet past the fish-farm cages on their migration routes.

    The Guardian World News David Sharrock 2011

  • If they survive a year of hungry scrutiny by Mount Tamalpais 'herons and osprey and raccoons, the young fish (now called smolts) one day stop fighting the current, drift downstream past the second-growth redwoods, past the tires and soccer balls and styrofoam cups, past the slumping, over-grazed hillsides of Olema, into the brackish waters of the creek's estuary at the south end of Tomales Bay.

    Coyote Crossing 2009

  • But a new study by David Welch, Carl Schreck, and colleagues suggests that factors other than dams may also be vital to the survival of ocean-going juveniles (called smolts).

    PLoS Biology: New Articles 2008

  • No matter how many smolts we dump in the river, the dams and other downstream factors out of our control decimates the population.

    Saving Salmon vs. Climate Change 2009

  • They undergo profound physiological changes as they adapt from fresh to salt (as smolts) and then the other way around as they mature and return to their freshwater spawning streams.

    Great Lakers Not Steelhead? Tim Romano 2007

  • The loons would be transients stopping off for a quick fish or two maybe some of Fisheries and Wildlife's carefully-nurtured Atlantic salmon smolts . . ., as they generally settle down on lakes and ponds for breeding territory.

    Business as usual jhetley 2009

  • The relative ease of mass-producing many millions of coho smolts for stocking mainly in Oregon and Washington has had both positive and negative aspects.

    Trout and Salmon of North America Robert J. Behnke 2002

  • The highest known survival of hatchery salmon—from smolts to adults caught in fisheries and returning to their home hatchery rivers—has been with Baltic salmon and has ranged from 10 to 20 percent in fish released from Swedish hatcheries.

    Trout and Salmon of North America Robert J. Behnke 2002

  • It is only in recent years that fisheries scientists such as Shelton have succeeded in tracking the oceanic wanderings of spring smolts – or rather, ‘post-smolts’, now that they have left the river.

    Richard Hamblyn · Simply Putting on Weight: Salmon · LRB 25 February 2010 Richard Hamblyn 2019

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