Sockeye Salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka), also called Red Salmon or Blueback Salmon, is a species of salmon found in the Pacific Ocean.

Its range is as far as south as the Klamath River in California in the eastern Pacific and northern Hokkaido Island in Japan in the western Pacific, and as far north as Bathurst Inlet in the Canadian Arctic in the east and the Anadyr River in Siberia in the west.

Sockeyes, unlike the other species of Pacific Salmon, feed almost exclusively on plankton. They are able to do this as a result of their many gill rakers, which strain the plankton from the water. It is speculated that this diet is the reason for the striking hue of their flesh.

Some young fish spend as long as four years in fresh water lakes before migrating to the sea. In rivers without lakes, many of the young move to the ocean quite soon after hatching. These salmon mature after one to four years in the ocean. Some Sockeye Salmon live and reproduce in lakes and are called "kokanee." They are much smaller than the ones that go to the ocean and are rarely over 350mm (14 inches) long.

This species is netted for commercial canning, especially in Bristol Bay, Alaska, site of the largest harvest of sockeye salmon in the world, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. The species has been preferred for canning due to the rich orange-red color of the flesh. More than half of the sockeye salmon caught today is sold frozen.

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