In the Field

"Likely a Female Coho." Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia. August 18, 2026.

I captured this photo of a jumping salmon early on during my "Summer in the Great Bear: Focused on Wolves" exploratory photo adventure in August of 2026. At the time of the photo we had been sitting for awhile in our Zodiacs waiting for members of a wolf pack to show themselves, and the entire time salmon had been jumping all around us. Eventually we all succumbed to the challenge of trying to capture images of the salmon as they took to the air!

I personally sat for awhile before I began shooting, largely to see if I could discern any pattern to what looked like random leaps from the water. Sure enough, it soon became obvious that the jumping locations were decidedly non-random. When one salmon jumped in a particular spot it was common that a second salmon would jump nearby seconds later. So I started pointing my camera and focusing on places where a salmon had just jumped, with the hope a second would jump soon after. After all, the particular inlet we were sitting in was quite large and catching the "first" jumping salmon (which could be anywhere in a 360 degree circle around us) was close to zero.

Anyway...long story short, before long I had a lot of images of jumping salmon, with this one (out of a sequence of about 10 shots of it) being one of my favourite.

So...what kind of salmon is it? We had printed fish ID guides with us on the boat, but a perusal of them didn't really narrow it down too much. So I decided I'd try to get ChatGPT to try to identify it from this photo when I next had an internet connection. After a lot of back and forth with my "personal" AI agent (which I've nicknamed "Albert") the final result wasn't fully conclusive, but Albert suggested that the fish was "...most likely a female Coho" owing to the small, irregular black spots along the upper back. So here AI helped me identify the subject - but played absolutely no role in the capture or processing of the image!

Here's a larger version (4800 pixel) of this acrobatic salmon:

• "Likely a Female Coho": Download 4800 pixel image (JPEG: 3.0 MB)

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

1. These images - in all resolutions - are protected by copyright. I'm fine with personal uses of them (including use as desktop backgrounds or screensavers on your own computer), but unauthorized commercial use of the image is prohibited by law. Thanks in advance for respecting my copyright!

2. Like all photographs on this website, these images were captured following the strict ethical guidelines described in The Wildlife FIRST! Principles of Photographer Conduct. As such, no baiting or any form of attractant was used and, as always, we attempted to minimize our impact on the ongoing behaviour of the subjects. I strongly encourage all wildlife photographers to always put the welfare of their subjects above the value of their photographs.

3. This image was captured during my Summer in the Great Bear: Focused on Wolves Exploratory Photo Adventure in late summer of 2026. Each year I offer photo tours into various locations on the amazing BC coast, including the Great Bear Rainforest and, every other year, into the Khutzeymateen Grizzly Sanctuary (to photograph grizzlies, of course!). Details about these trips can be found on the Photo Tours page of this website.

Behind the Camera

"Likely a Female Coho." Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia. August 18, 2026.

Compressed RAW (ARW) format; ISO 1600.

Sony A1 II paired with Sony FE 600mm f4 GM OSS lens. Hand-held from floating Zodiac inflatable boat. OSS on and set to Mode 1. Spot: XL (tracking) AF area mode with subject recognition mode set to Animal/Bird.

1/4000s @ f4; -2.3 stop compensation from multi-metered exposure setting.

At the Computer

"Likely a Female Coho." Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia. August 18, 2026.

Initial noise reduction and capture sharpening on the .arw (raw) file using the DeepPRIME XD3 algorithm of DXO PhotoLab 9.5 Elite (using the appropriate camera/lens module).

Subsequent adjustments to the adjusted linear DNG file (exported from PhotoLab) and conversion to 16-bit TIFF file (and JPEG files for web use) - including all global and selective adjustments - made using Capture One Pro (build 16.8). In the case of this image I made only one global adjustments - a slight increase in overall colour saturation. Selective local adjustments performed using Capture One Pro's layers and masking tools. In this case numerous small adjustments and minor tweaks were made on 2 separate layers, with the tweaks being associated with "exposure balancing" and contrast adjustments (such as adjustments to brightness, clarity, highlights, shadows, blacks, etc.).

Photoshop modifications included insertion of the watermark and/or text.

Conservation

"Likely a Female Coho." Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia. August 18, 2026.

Species Status in Canada*: This species is designated as Vulnerable.

Coho Salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) have a compact life cycle: eggs hatch in stream gravel; juveniles usually rear in freshwater for about one year (occasionally two or three years in northern BC), then spend up to 18 months in the ocean—mostly coastal waters—before returning to their natal stream to spawn. Most adults are three years old; some males return at two. Like other Pacific salmon, they spawn once and die.

In British Columbia, their status is highly population-specific, and there isn't a simple province-wide trend. Coho remain widespread, occurring in many coastal streams, but numerous southern BC and Interior Fraser populations suffered major declines associated with poor marine survival, fishing pressure, and freshwater habitat impacts. The genetically distinct Interior Fraser coho were reassessed as Threatened in 2016 and are currently the subject of possible federal Species at Risk Act listing.

As an example of how highly population-specific their status is, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) projects the following for 2026: Average returns for Georgia Strait and West Coast Vancouver Island coho, but below-average returns for Skeena coho.

*as listed by Wild Species Canada (wildspecies.ca)