They may not be flying fish but salmon are now rocketing over man-made structures thanks to an innovative water cannon that's being used to help them get up and over barriers during migration.
Whooshh Innovations created the salmon cannon in response to Washington state's debate regarding how to keep hydraulic dams from blocking the salmon migration, according to The Verge. The company is known for designing tubes to transport fruit, but an employee came up with a similar idea that involves sucking up the fish and then shooting them over the dams that block the Columbia River.
"So we put a tilapia in the fruit tube," said Todd Deligan, vice president of Whooshh. "It went flying, and we were like, 'Huh, check that out.'"
Dams and other artificial water constructions present several problems for fish, such as causing them to be disoriented or disrupting natural water flow, which increases the time the fish spend traveling, CNET reported. Turbines and spillways also present a danger that can result in the fish being injured or killed.
The salmon cannon works by sending fish through one end, followed by them being encased in a seal formed by the soft fabric of the tube. This process creates a vacuum that shoots the fish through the tube at up to 22 miles per hour before they fly out the other end.
Deligen said the cannon serves as a more effective and less traumatizing way to get fish past man-made barriers than other methods, such as putting them on trucks, loading them onto barges and lifting them by helicopter, The Verge reported. While the tubes have been able to launch fish at 100 vertical feet, Deligan said, in theory, that the fish can be shot at higher altitudes.
"Grand Coulee would be the ultimate goal," he said.
The fish are only out of the water for a few seconds before safely landing in the water on the other side, CNET reported. The tubes have so far been tested at Kalama Falls, Columbia River Gorge and Roza Dam.
While the team feeds fish into the tubes by hand, Deligan said fish are also happy to swim into the tubes themselves, The Verge reported.
"We have to take it at its face value," Deligan said. "Try it, put a fish in, watch it go, laugh. But then really contemplate where this could go."
