: a commercially important Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) that is greenish blue above and silvery below when sexually immature and turns red with a greenish head when ascending rivers to spawn which it does chiefly from the Columbia northward
called also red salmon, sockeye
compare kokaneeExamples of sockeye salmon in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
While chinook and chum salmon are restricted, sockeye salmon, a less traditionally popular and available fish, has become an increasingly viable alternative.
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Paige Vega, Vox, 3 July 2024
From the visitor center’s outdoor platform, visitors can watch the spectacle of salmon and other fish swimming up a fish ladder — steelhead and sockeye salmon in early summer and chinook and coho salmon in September.
—Ben Davidson, The Mercury News, 17 June 2024
In 1990, the Shoshone Bannock Tribes petitioned the federal government to list the Sawtooth Valley’s sockeye salmon as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act.
—Rocky Barker, Idaho Statesman, 31 Jan. 2024
The Katmai brown bears are famous for standing at Brooks Falls, catching sockeye salmon in their mouths to fatten up for the winter.
—Pilar Arias, Fox News, 4 Oct. 2023
See all Example Sentences for sockeye salmon 
Paige Vega, Vox, 3 July 2024
From the visitor center’s outdoor platform, visitors can watch the spectacle of salmon and other fish swimming up a fish ladder — steelhead and sockeye salmon in early summer and chinook and coho salmon in September.
—Ben Davidson, The Mercury News, 17 June 2024
In 1990, the Shoshone Bannock Tribes petitioned the federal government to list the Sawtooth Valley’s sockeye salmon as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act.
—Rocky Barker, Idaho Statesman, 31 Jan. 2024
The Katmai brown bears are famous for standing at Brooks Falls, catching sockeye salmon in their mouths to fatten up for the winter.
—Pilar Arias, Fox News, 4 Oct. 2023
See all Example Sentences for sockeye salmon
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'sockeye salmon.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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“Sockeye salmon.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sockeye%20salmon. Accessed 26 Jul. 2024.
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