Researchers have confirmed that salmon are using Earth's magnetic field to find their way across thousands of miles of water, according to a new study.

A study conducted at Oregon State University claims hundreds of juvenile Chinook salmon at the Oregon Hatchery Research Center inherited a sense of direction to their families' migration routes.  

"These fish are programmed to know what to do before they ever reach the ocean," said study lead author Nathan Putman, according to UPI.

Chinook salmon hatch in freshwater streams and then are able to swim to the ocean to feed within the first year of their lives.

Researchers learned that a number of salmon oriented themselves toward the magnetic fields that exists in their feeding grounds.

"Everybody was pretty surprised that the fish already had that ability," study co-author Nathan Putman, a researcher at Oregon State University, said to Live Science. "Before the fish even hit saltwater, they already have a sense of what they should be doing if and when they should find themselves in a certain magnetic field."

Before now, loggerhead sea turtles have been the only known species to know ancestral migration routes from birth.

Researchers are now trying to figure determine how exact the salmon's internal navigation system is, whether it's feet or miles.

"My guess is that they will have a very coarse resolution at this young age, but as they get older and do get experience with the magnetic field, that resolution will continue to get better until they are adults," Putman said.

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