"It's a Salmon Run! Time To Go Home." -- Chinook Salmon
The upriver salmon migration is one of nature's most mysterious dramas. To some species of Pacific salmon, it is a long, strenuous, desperate race against time, with every obstacle taking a toll. The journey is an example of phenomenal effort. Perseverance.
Pacific salmon may swim hundreds or thousands of miles to their birthplace to spawn. This genetic perseverance keeps them fighting upriver to return to their spawning grounds and repeats.
The circle of life and death takes mental toughness. First, they must survive their years in the ocean, staying safe amid commercial fishers, natural predators, and storms. Only the strongest survive by swimming against the swift current and leaping over steep waterfalls.
Second, the male must fight off other males at the spawning grounds to keep them from his female of choice. The female covers her eggs with silt and stands watch for several hours or days.
Finally, she lays her eggs, and the male deposits his sperm over them. The salmon turn into brilliant colors and die within a few days of spawning from injuries and exhaustion. Young salmon develop a great sense of smell of their home water as they grow into adulthood. 
Each year from May to September, adult salmon begin their epic journey from their birth rivers and streams toward the ocean. Depending on specific species, salmon spend one to seven years in the sea.
Research has discovered that the same adult salmon return to their birthplace using the Earth's magnetic field to navigate the migration process. Those that survive will spawn and die, and this migration process begins the salmon life cycle.
Let this great video captivate you. It's about the incredible journey of salmon migration. Enjoy!
'I think we're going to the moon because it's in the nature of the human being to face all challenges. It's by the nature of his deep inner soul... We're required to do these things just as salmon swim upstream." -- Neil Armstrong
Like salmon, many of us possess an "innate ability to persevere through the difficulty and adversity at all cost."
Some who may have written a failure resume tend to give up amidst the difficulty.
There is no circumvention of life's struggles. It is not the absence of effort and difficulty that constitutes peace; it is strength and resolve that ensures that you will emerge victoriously. As a man thinks in his heart, so he is...
"Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after the other." – Walter Elliot.
With all sincerity, thank you, Ray Henson and Margaret Rome Baltimore 410-530-2400 for hosting this August Challenge!
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