I saw single-minded salmon

Context
I'm in Juneau, Alaska for vacation this week. Juneau is on the Gastineau Channel, where scads of salmon come after they've matured to swim up their home streams, spawn and die, so I've had quite a few chances to see the swimming upstream portion of this cycle. There are many obstacles, both manmade and natural, preventing the salmon from getting to their destination. These include pools where the water gets too shallow for the salmon to breathe when the tide goes out.

Commentary
My title up there is a misnomer because salmon, of course, are not single-minded. They have no minds at all. They have a biological imperative that compels them to swim upstream. As a human being though, my tendency is to anthropomorphize and say, "what are those salmon thinking?"

As I was watching the salmon making their way up a particular stream today, I thought I saw a couple saying to themselves, "aha! I've found the easy way to get up this stream and now I'll get there before everyone else and have a really successful spawn!" Actually, they were headed straight for one of those shallows I mentioned above, where several of their dead buddies had already created a feast for seagulls.

So this made me think about single-mindedness. Salmon have no choice in the matter, but we do. Do we get so focused on immediate goals that we fail to see the consequences of our actions? Do we look for the quick answer instead of considering the longer path that might have better rewards? Can we learn something from fish that have no minds at all?

What did you see today?