A study in Washington and Oregon identified 138 species of terrestrial and marine mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians that feed on salmon.
Of those, nine species were so dependent on salmon their "distribution, viability, abundance and/or population status" was decided by the availability of the fish.
The nine species most reliant on salmon are: grizzly bear, black bear, bald eagle, Caspian tern, common merganser, harlequin duck, killer whale, osprey and river otter.
The report, which had input from several U.S. government agencies, advised wildlife managers to "be aware that salmon can be viewed as the centre of a broad 'functional web' of wildlife and … thus [are]a keystone species."
Mark Hume