BELLEVUE, WA - Salmon are getting some help from an unexpected source: fresh produce.  Well, more specifically, Whooshh Innovations.

Whooshh developed a method of gently and quickly transporting fruit over long distances via a tube.  From apples, to cucumbers and ripe tomatoes, these tubes can safely transport fruit across long distances without bruising.

Check out the video below showing how this technology works:

CNET reports that when the team discovered that hydroelectric dams were causing migrating salmon problems, they decided to adapt the tube to fish.

Salmon live difficult lives.  They are born in fresh water and travel to the ocean to grow but must return back to the very spot they were born to lay their own spawn.  This can mean traveling hundreds of miles and navigating obstacles like swimming up waterfalls and dams.  Fish can lose their bearings and get injured or killed on the journey.  This new innovation should help prevent that.

It works like a pneumatic tube.  The salmon goes in one end, and the soft fabric of the tube forms a seal around the body of the fish, creating a vacuum that propels the fish through the tube at a speed of around 11 – 22 miles per hour, according to CNET. 

The system has been tested at Kalama Falls, Columbia River Gorge and Roza Dam in Washington state so far, where the team have both manually fed fish into the tube and let the fish swim into it themselves -- which, the team said, they seem quite happy to do.

Check out the full video below of the Salmon Cannon in action:

Who would have thought that fresh produce and salmon could be such good friends?

Whooshh Innovations