I have got to get myself one of these. Whooshh Innovations have developed a solution (shown below in the video) to the falling salmon populations. The salmon had been kept from their migrating areas by a series of dams. The obstacles at dams leave them “disoriented” and lost. So enter the “salmon cannon” — a pneumatic tube that can shoot up to 40 fish a minute to up to 22 mph. Apparently, getting shot out of a cannon is less disorienting to the salmon but, come on, who would not want to be shot out of a cannon? It is the ultimately water park attraction for the high-end gill crowd.
The “salmon cannon” sucks fish out of water and fires them over barriers. It is really not much of a cannon (anymore than the Salad Shooter is a real gun). The tube has a soft salmon-loving fabric that creates a vacuum that propels the fish. (I just hope that a restaurant doesn’t latch on to this concept).
Tests at Kalama Falls, Columbia River Gorge and Roza Dam in Washington state reportedly show that the salmon are happy to become fish missiles. So there you have it: the salmon cannon
Source: ExtremeTech
Cannon Ball Fish Run
Paul,
Love the Mythbuster guys, but what were they using? Handgun? Rifle? Shotgun? Fishcannon?
I’m thinking the shotgun would be pretty easy, but the fishcannon might prove a bit counterproductive.
fiver – if I remember correctly, and this is a dim memory so please do not hold me to it, they were using a rifle. The fish cannon would be useless. 😉 You would overshoot the barrel.
The manufacturer of this device (as well as Big Energy, Big Agri and others who benefit from the damming of rivers) might view this solution to be as easy as shooting fish
infrom a barrel. Still, I think I’ll wait for environmentalists and the fishing industry to weigh in.But in the meantime: Dude! They made a gun that shoots fish! How cool is that?
fiver – Myth Busters did a segment on shooting fish is a barrel and it is not as easy as one would think. Has to do with the water bending the rays of light, so the fish are not really where you think they are.
Oh, that nature needs all the help it can get.
Good thing industry is here to help nature survive.
Rick, Great quip and clip.
This is the coolest thing I’ll see today. I bet the fish are wondering how long it will take it for a human to clog it up.
Has this been Grizzly tested?
They need to enlarge the tube to say, human size.
I envision the Dan Ackroyd character on SNL selling Bassomatics, to now be selling the Salmon Cannon.
I do see the water park application of this, however, I also the potential for lawsuits.
I am interested that the salmon are found disoriented and lost pre-salmon cannon. I was unaware that there were surveys that salmon could take. How did they set this survey up and who gave it?
doglover – this solution seems more vaginal than phallic, with the salmon being expelled from the vaginal canal at the end.
It’s only natural that men have a tendency to develop solutions to problems with something phallic if at all possible. In my small western community it’s shooting deer to solve the deer-in-town problem, shooting buffalo to solve the buffalo out of Yellowstone problem and of course nationally, no problem is so complex that it can’t be solved by shooting it or dropping bomb on it. Designing a tube that shoots fish must be gratifying for some engineers, less so for the fish.
Record catches in BC this year. A tourist caught a 34 lb Spring off the breakwater in Victoria. It broke his pole and a local helped him pull it in. He took it to his motel. Now if we could just stop feeding them mercury and the rest of the crap we make, then??????