Salmon live in different habitats: freshwater and ocean habitats.
Freshwater habitats: When in freshwater, salmon fry and parr like to live in areas of gravel, cobbles and boulders and where the water is clean and unpolluted. Smolts migrate from our rivers to the sea. After a year or more at sea, adult salmon return from their feeding grounds back to their river.
FACT: Scotland has over 50,000 km of rivers, many of which have wild Atlantic salmon and sea trout, and also more than 30,000 lochs and ponds.Adult fish may enter the rivers and 'hold up' in areas of deep cool water such as pools. Once it is time for them to spawn they will return to the area where they were born, with amazing accuracy, to spawn themselves. These spawning areas may be in small tributaries of river systems where there is clean gravel and a good flow of fresh clean water.
Young salmon also like to live in rivers which have natural grassy banks with some deciduous trees near the river. This is because lots of insects (that salmon eat for food) live in the overhanging grasses and trees. Sometimes these insects will fall into the river where the young salmon can eat them.
Deciduous trees are also useful to shade the edges of riverbanks. This shade provides cover for the fish so that predators find it harder to find them. The fish like to sit under the trees because it makes them feel safer from predators.
Ocean habitats: We know where salmon go to feed in the sea - grilse swim to near the Faroe Islands, and multi sea winter salmon swim to sub arctic seas near Greenland. But, we are not sure exactly which habitats salmon prefer and what happens to them whilst they are at sea. British and Norwegian Governments, along with the Atlantic Salmon Trust, are currently funding research into what happens to salmon whilst they are at sea.