Salmon Death

The living swim among the dead.

That is the sad part- seeing so much death in one place. Parents better have their birds-and-bees stories all ready as well as cycle of life stuff for the pre-teens who often get bombarded with animal rights ideas that warp their views.
I say it's sad because I am accustomed to associating death with sadness. It's not often that I witness mass death that is part of a natural biological pattern. Of course the stench of rotting fish in the river will balanced it out...that smell is a reminder that BEARS and all other manner of predators are eating very well right now in preparation for winter. When you look deeper into it still, the nutrients that are released from all this decay get washed downstream and go on to fortify all that lies downstream: Shuswap Lake, the rivers that lead from it, right down to the oceans.

Animal cycles are basically the same as humans: we all are born, live our lives by eating, drinking and sleeping, when we're mature enough engage in sex and produce young, and then-give or take a few minutes to years, we die.
The biggest difference between the animals and the human animal is that we are the most intelligent and therefore at the top of the food chain. We don't just eat the flesh of the animal: we study the animal and it's habits, we farm it where we can and we protect the habitats whereby it originates in it's wild form. We try.

Earlier I mentioned animal rights...I am referring to those aspects of these groups that have convinced people that it's wrong to show such things or to use an actual animal corpse for educational purposes. Parents should be aware that these groups really try to brainwash young impressionable minds into believing things that can and will warp their thinking and views later on in life. Seeing the life/death cycle played out like this in well organized event structure is about the most ideal way it can be done.

(Interesting I find that really young kids don't have big issues over this- probably because they haven't comprehended death yet but do understand what rotting flesh implies. The smell alone lets you know that it's not just all pretty red fish.)