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ORIGINAL: steelstalker

Well, I'm sorry but you're going to have to make a new word to limit steelhead to being Oncorhynchus mykiss that migrate from salt to freshwater so that the poor steelhead know better.

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They're not real smart animals, I love them but they're not smart, and as far as they know they are fully complying to the literal translation of anadromous. You would think that if salt was actually an important part of the lifecycle of these fish that it would be included in the term that is used to describe them. Hmm... must not be that important because it's not there. You can say whatever you want but Great Lakes Steelhead fully comply to the literal translation of the word anadromous, which makes you wrong.

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ORIGINAL: KJH807

stalker...
you have yet to prove me wrong...
which point below do you not agree with???


1a--a steelhead is by definition an anadromous rainbow trout...
1b--by definition anadromous fish migrate from salt water to freshwater in order to spawn...

2--lake erie is freshwater

3a--potamodromous fish are fish that migrate to spawn, but spend their entire lives in freshwater...
3b--the fish in erie are potamodromous... because they migrate in ONLY FRESH WATER...

4--therefore a fish in Lake Erie/lake erie tribs can never fit the definition of a steelhead...

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ORIGINAL: LDD

KJH,

So following your line of logic, if I take a tarpon out of the Gulf of Florida and put it in the mississippi river, it's not a tarpon anymore simply because the definition of a tarpon states that it is a "saltwater fish"?  The absence of salt water doesn't cancel out the genetics of the fish or the fact that it has the same tendencies as an anadromous steelhead. By definition only they are not steelhead but in all other manner they are a steelhead and not a rainbow trout.  It's like saying that a polar bear in captivity isn't a polar bear because it can't roam in its natural environment.  We have taken this fish and put it in an unnatural habitat, it doesn't change what the fish is.  The feeesh is a steeeelie.........bang.   

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ORIGINAL: MackJ


Answering for myself, I would disagree with 1a, and therefore 4, in accordance with the reasoning of the subsequent post by LDD.  There is some pleasure people derive in commadering definitions to suit there own prejudices.  Lake Erie Steelhead behave in nearly the same way as Pacific "anadromous" Steelhead, excepting only that when they return to the "sea," that sea does not contain saltwater.  Since we are naming the fish rather than the habitat, I would think that calling a Lake Erie (or Lake Michigan, etc.) Steelhead a "rainbow trout" would be less accurate than calling it a steelhead.

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ORIGINAL: KJH807

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ORIGINAL: dano


So by your reasoning, the salmon in Lake Ontario are not really salmon because by definition, salmon are an anadromous fish.
Do I have that right?

not all salmon are anadromous...
landlocked salmon won't go to salt, even if unobstructed...

the chinook and coho in the G.L. are not a native fish... they were orignialy introduced to destory alewifes in MI in the late 60s...

man has created a "landlocked chinook" in the G.L.
this is not an anadromous fish... rather a potamodromos fish

???

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ORIGINAL: dano

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ORIGINAL: KJH807

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ORIGINAL: dano


So by your reasoning, the salmon in Lake Ontario are not really salmon because by definition, salmon are an anadromous fish.
Do I have that right?

not all salmon are anadromous...
landlocked salmon won't go to salt, even if unobstructed...

So you are saying that the Great Lake Chinooks are still considered salmon, an anadromous fish. But since they spend their lives in fresh water, we call them landlock salmon. Right?
Well, we can say the same thing about our steelhead. We should consider them landlocked steelhead by the same reasoning.
Since our landlocked steelhead go through a smoltification process like their pacific cousins, I would say that they are more closely related to steelhead than our domestic bows.  

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ORIGINAL: LDD

Everything in post 68 I agree with...I'm just playing devil's advocate here...although you are wrong about the tarpon...they typically have anadromous tendencies and live in fresh and brackish water throughout the everglades, south america and in various rivers in costa rica. 
my point was that just becuase the environment is not adequate to support its "biological name" doesn't mean that the fish is not a steelhead.  The question then is, if the lake were salt, would the fish enter it?  My contention is that they would, thus making them steelhead.  There are rainbows (mykiss) in various rivers in alaska that never enter salt water and there are steelhead that obviously enter the salt and come back to spawn.  The fish in erie are genetically closer to the fish that enter the salt and not the rainbows that do not.  Therefore, the fish in Erie would enter the salt, if it were there, and that's what makes them steelhead although there is an absence of salt.  

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ORIGINAL: SilverKype

Smoltification is the only biological separation.  That's what makes a steelhead a steelhead.  You were told that back on the first page.  Water content has nothing to do with taxonomy.  It's the biology that does, it's the migrating signal that creates the steelhead.  Domestic rainbows do not have this.