New Fish, New Features, and Record-Breaking Participation for Survive the Sound 2025
Spring is a time for change and movement in the Pacific Northwest. Wildflowers start to bloom, the sun peeks out from behind the clouds, and young salmon and steelhead begin their dangerous migration toward the Pacific Ocean. While those fish are swimming downstream and navigating Puget Sound, a different kind of migration is happening online at SurviveTheSound.org.
Survive the Sound is a fun, free, and informative event hosted by Long Live the Kings each year in the Spring. Using data from real steelhead that were tagged and tracked by our friends at NOAA, we combine science, art, and education to create a game that helps people of all ages learn about and connect with local fish populations. Players are invited to visit the game’s website, pick their favorite fish character, and join a team to see whose fish can survive the longest. It’s basically fantasy football for fish!
This year, the 9th Annual Survive the Sound took place Monday, April 28 through Friday, May 2. Out of the 48 fish that began the competition, only 9 survived all the way to the finish line – and that’s actually better than expected! The survivors had to overcome a gauntlet of challenges that included predators, pollution, diseases, parasites, habitat loss, warming waters, and all of the other environmental impacts that come from human development. With all of that in their way, it should come as no surprise that only about 15-20% of juvenile steelhead are able to survive the migration to the ocean.
Seasoned players may have noticed some exciting additions to the game this year, including new lessons for educators and updates to the in-game map. With support from the Snoqualmie Indian Tribe, we expanded our suite of free educational resources to include multiple climate change-focused lessons as well as a brand new Survive the Sound card game! All of these resources (and more) are available to download for free from our Classroom page. For the map upgrades, we partnered with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to add new information about pollution and predation hotspots around Puget Sound.
While science and data will always be the foundation of the game, the real popularity of Survive the Sound comes from the art. Each fish character has a unique design and helps bring a sense of fun and whimsy to what is essentially a map that shows where and how the fish die. Most of the artwork was created by children’s book author and illustrator Jocelyn Li Langrand, but this year we started a new tradition: a competition to let our student players create a fish of their own! Over 1,000 students submitted their incredible and imaginative fish designs, culminating in a public bracket vote via Instagram to select a single winner. It was incredible to see the passion and excitement that our players have for the game, and we were proud to welcome Mushy as the newest member of the Survive the Sound fish family.
As Spring winds down and the migration comes to a close, we want to thank all of the sponsors, partners, and players who made Survive the Sound 2025 such a success. The game was bigger and better than ever before, with more than 30,000 individual players signing up and picking a fish. In addition, educators reported using the game and our collection of salmon-focused lessons to reach over 75,000 local students. By taking real-world science and packaging it in such a fun and engaging format, we hope to inspire the next generation of salmon stewards in the Pacific Northwest and beyond.
Survive the Sound will return next Spring for its 10th anniversary (coincidentally marking the 40th anniversary for Long Live the Kings), so stay tuned to learn more. We can’t wait to show you everything we have planned, and hope that you will join us for another round of fishy fun in 2026. Together, we will make sure even more fish Survive the Sound!