The diagram illustrates the life process of salmon fish in the river, estuary, and the ocean, starting with eggs to fully grown fish.
Overall, it is clear that the lifetime of salmon is divided into three main stages of life that occur in three distinct locations.
The first stage encompasses the process in the river from birth to young salmon fish. while the following stages include estuary rearing and immigration downstream to the ocean where the salmon fully develop into fully adult fish.
Focusing on the first stage, there are four highlighted stages before reaching to estaury. Spawing predominately happens in the river, followed by incubation of the produced eggs. After that, the emergence of baby fish initiates freshwater rearing.
Moving to the second stage, which we can also consider a four-stage lifespan. Estaury rearing takes place in an area between the river and the ocean prior to fish migrating downstream to the rearing area solely in the ocean, where fish is fully grown and developed into mature salmon. The final stage is what we can consider to be the link between the two stages, and that is the immigraion of salmon upwards into spawing areas in the river and the cycle starts anew.