>>90352320the run is the most dangerous part
once they actually get to their basin that they basically have their communal orgy in, their bodies are essentially living corpses with the amount of stress they've put themselves through, changing their physiology, almost actively decaying while still alive
the bears and stuff don't touch them at that point, but the travel to said basin is where they often get picked off
their numbers usually mean that enough make it to keep the population sustainable
it's neat because the salmon runs are often attributed to why the west coast of north america has such robust forests, the nitrogen from all the fish corpses over centuries keep the soil fertile.
