Salmon sometimes have trouble getting over today’s manmade dams. Whooshh Innovations' salmon cannon can provide an interesting solution.
Salmon are truly awe - inspiring tool . They can swim hundreds of naut mi against river currents without feeding , chute up to12 feet in the airover rocky outcrops , and grow to a size offive groundwork and 97 pound sterling .
What they ca n’t do , however , is conquer modern man ’s giant dams . But that ’s where the Salmon River cannon come in .
Washington state of matter - found Whooshh Innovations has design pneumatic tubes that can safely shoot fish hundreds of feet at speeds of up to 22 land mile per hour . The metro were first designed in 2008 for move apples without bruising them , but Todd Deligan , Whooshh ’s vice president , quickly realise their excogitation could help salmon up and over the many dams along the Columbia River .
And we can be glad that realization happened . The number of salmon mintage heel as either threatened or endangered is in the double digits , and by as long ago as 1999,wild Salmon River had vanish from 40 % of their upbringing ground .
Dams blocking their migratory paths has a lot to do with it . A 2013 Yalestudyfound that , even with “ Pisces ladders ” in place , as much as one - third and as little as three pct of Salmon River universe could successfully make it over the damns in the four states they tracked .
Last twelvemonth , The Seattle Timesreportedthat $ 2.4 billion dollars would be call for to absent more decametre to authorise the way for Salmon River — and they ’ve been spending that kind of money for a long meter now . So Whooshh ’s simple mind of a Salmon River cannon — if successful — has come just in time .
“ We put a tilapia in the yield tube , ” Deligantold The Vergein 2014 . “ It went fly , and we were like , ‘ huh , check that out . ' ”
Today , Whooshh has a 500 - foot cannon in Norway that actuate glacial fish , in improver to its various installations across the United States . The Salmon River cannons have yet to be installed along the major dams of the Columbia River , but tests have shown that Pisces the Fishes will enter the tube of their own accord ; the future is looking bright .
“ We have to take it at its look value , ” Deligan read . “ taste it , put a fish in , check it go , laugh . But then really contemplate where this could go . ”
For more , check out seven of the most frighteninglybizarre ocean tool , and then take a tone at a shockingfish infographicthat will make you never require to eat Pisces again .
