Sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka), also called red salmon or blueback salmon, is an anadromous species of salmon found in the Pacific Ocean. The same species when it occurs in landlocked bodies of water is called the kokanee. This species is the third most common type of Pacific salmon, after Pink and Chum salmon. The name "sockeye" is thought to have been a corruption of the various Indian tribes' word "sukkai."

The gold mine proposed for this stunning open country might be the largest in North America. It would involve building the biggest dam in the world at the headwaters of the world's largest sockeye salmon fishery, which it would risk obliterating.

Researchers engineer one fish to produce another, in a move that could save the sockeye.

It's the largest sockeye run in the world, accounting for more than 25% of wild salmon harvested in the US. And it's about to be turned into a gold mine that would include five dams, two of them bigger than China's Three Gorges. More than 2.5 billion tons of waste rock and toxic residue would fill two valleys, and a 104 mile road would be built.

The mysterious return of Sockeye Salmon 80 years after a stream's run went extinct has scientists and local officials intrigued. It could provide key lessons for how to restore these ocean-going fish to other former salmon habitats. Such successes would benefit the health of not just the streams and adjacent forests, but also local economies.

In what a biologist is calling "a fisheries Jurassic Park," Alouette River sockeye salmon have returned to spawn nearly 80 years after the original Alouette run became extinct.