We found this dead salmon, on Christmas Eve, in Waskerley beck, a tributory of the river Wear at Wolsingham in Weardale. It had evidently swum upriver from the sea to spawn in shallow gravels and died of exhaustion, old age or disease - or perhaps from all three causes. Patches of fungal disease are clearly evident on its scales. Few salmon make it back to sea after they have spawned.
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