The salmon cannon
The “salmon cannon” is real, but it never fires a fish through the air. It's a soft tube that hugs the fish, so the fish itself seals the tube, and a pressure difference under 2 psi (the maker's figure) pushes it along like a piston. Cameras check each fish's girth first: in one early test, with the scanner off and the mist failing, fewer fish survived to spawn. In one PNNL study, salmon that rode it showed no more injury or stress than salmon moved by truck.
- 0:00 The cannon myth
- 0:06 Not how it works
- 0:11 The dam blocks
- 0:16 The real tube
- 0:26 The salmon piston
- 0:40 Small push, fine mist
- 0:48 The fit matters
- 1:02 The real ride
- 1:11 Back to swimming