Fish Cannon: Does The World's Most Famous Fish Tube Actually Work?



We get this question more than almost any other. Someone watches the video, the one with the salmon shooting through a tube in slow motion, and the first thing they ask is: is that real? Does it actually work? Do the fish survive?

The short answer is yes. But the longer answer is more interesting.


The fish cannon, as the internet named it back in 2014 when the original Whooshh demo video went viral, is a real, functioning technology. It's based on differential air pressure, the same basic principle you'd see in a pneumatic tube system at a bank drive-through, adapted over years of biological testing and engineering iteration to move live fish safely. The fish travel through a flexible, misted MigratorTube at around 25 feet per second on a cushion of cooled, humidified air. No net contact. No handling. No injury to scales or fins in properly deployed systems.


What Actually Happens to a Fish During Passage?


The entry is volitional. Fish swim into the system on their own, attracted by the current from the ASPFishway entry component. They're not scooped, netted, or loaded by hand (except in the TUber mobile unit, where the SalmonCannon hand-loads from a trap). From the moment of entry to the moment of exit, the fish is in a wetted, temperature-controlled environment that's designed to minimize the cortisol spike that physical handling would otherwise trigger.

A 2014 study funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and conducted by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory assessed adult Chinook Salmon transport through Whooshh's system and found that survival, immune response, and egg viability were comparable to the control group processed through conventional trap and haul operations. That's a rigorous benchmark, and the system met it without requiring the fish to be handled at any point.


Why Did It Take a Viral Video to Get People's Attention?


Fisheries technology isn't a sector that generates headlines. Fish ladders, weirs, and trap-and-haul programs have been part of the management toolkit for decades without most people outside the industry ever noticing. The fish cannon video changed that because it looked surprising. A salmon flying through a tube is visually striking in a way that a conventional ladder is not.


But the underlying problem the fish cannon solves is serious and long-standing. Here's what conventional passage alternatives face that pneumatic transport doesn't:

  • Fish ladders require continuous high-volume water diversion, often hundreds to thousands of cubic feet per second, that reduces hydropower output

  • Trap and haul truck operations require substantial crew presence, physical handling of fish, and vehicle access to remote sites

  • Fish elevators have mechanical failure points and throughput limitations at high-density migration events

  • None of these generate real-time, species-level data on every fish that passes through them


The salmon cannon nickname has stuck in popular culture, but the actual product line has evolved well beyond a single tube and a blower. The PassagePortal systems are fully autonomous floating platforms that sort fish by species, log passage data automatically, and operate 24/7 without human intervention.


Is the Fish Cannon Approach Right for All Sites?


Not every site is a fit for every product. The PassagePortal Model F has minimum water depth requirements of 4 to 6 feet and power needs that range from 40 to 110 kW depending on configuration. The TUber mobile unit is better suited for hatchery transfer operations or sites that need seasonal or temporary deployment. The Selector product can retrofit existing fish ladders with sorting and monitoring capability without requiring a full replacement.


The honest answer to whether the fish cannon works is that it works, the science backs it up, and a decade of deployment experience across North American river systems has expanded what that technology can do. Visit Whooshh Innovations to see the full product range.


You can also read more about how fish passage technology is evolving in the published blog A More Natural Way Forward, which covers the broader philosophy behind where this field is heading. If you want to talk through a specific deployment scenario, the contact page is where that conversation starts.


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