The Salmon Cannon: Easier Than Shooting Fish Out of a Barrel : The Salt : NPR
Ever since rivers have been dammed, destroying the migration routes of salmon, humans have worked to create ways to help the fish return to their spawning grounds. We’ve built ladders and elevators; we’ve carried them by hand and transported them in trucks. Even helicopters have been used to fly fish upstream.
But all of those methods are expensive and none of them are efficient.
Enter the salmon cannon.
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The device uses a pressure differential to suck up a fish, send it through a tube at up to 22 mph and then shoot it out the other side, reaching heights of up to 30 feet. This weekend, it will be used to move hatchery fish up a tributary of the Columbia River in Washington.
The device was developed by Whooshh Innovations in Bellevue, Wash. CEO Vince Bryan tells NPR’s Linda Wertheimer that the word “cannon” is a bit of a misnomer: the device looks like a cannon, and shoots fish out like a cannon, but unlike the weapon, this device is designed to move items gently.
Bryan says that despite their journey — which takes them out of the water for the duration of their flight — the fish don’t seem worse for the wear.
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