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Atlantic salmon swim far and wide after fish farm collapse
- aurizon 9y agoNo river scent cues to follow, they will probably scatter and not establish any sort of breeding population - if they have any fertility left?
- Jesus_Jones 9y agoIf just say 10 of them were swept into the same river and eventually stream, they would have a chance at it. It's just the luck of numbers so far. After all, there's no law of nature that says atlantic salmon are only in the atlantic.
- jonnathanson 9y agoRight, but genetic diversity of the breeding population would be very low, making the population itself very fragile. And that's assuming the spawn survive their first season. (Most young salmon spawn do not survive, and those not native to the local waters face unique challenges.) This doesn't seem to be a case where the invading species gains an immediate upper hand in its new environment. (Cf., the rampant python population in the Florida Everglades.) In this case, the invading Atlantic species faces stiff and probably superior competition from the various Pacific salmon species, which are every bit as big and fast, and which fill the same ecological niche. Hell, a Pacific Chinook will get twice as big as an Atlantic salmon. It also knows the territory, including where and what to hunt, and its wild instincts haven't been dulled in a fish farm. If I were a betting man, I'd wager on the native Pacific populations over the scattered pockets of farm-raised exotics nearly 99 times out of 100. Barring human involvement, of course. If we hunt the Pacific species out of existence, or damage the environment beyond recognition, all bets are off.
- LeifCarrotson 9y ago> Hell, a Pacific Chinook will get twice as big as an Atlantic salmon. They don't have to be bigger and faster, with precise 'local knowledge' to be dangerous to an ecosystem. They merely have to be different. Perhaps their small size will cause them to escape the attention of normal predators, or their lack of knowledge of what to eat causes them to decimate some species that Pacific salmon don't eat.
- jonnathanson 9y agoAtlantic salmon aren't "different" enough from the various Pacific salmon species to occupy their own niche in the Pacific Northwest. If the big ones are too big for you, there are also medium-sized species and smaller species. The Atlantic salmon is a big, predatory fish that needs to eat a lot of smaller species to stay alive. In the Pacific Northwest region, pretty much every species that could sustain the Atlantic salmon is also preyed upon by an extant, native salmon variety of some stripe. If the Atlantic salmon possessed some sort of advantage in obtaining one prey species or another, then there you go, there's a niche it can adapt to. Thus far, we haven't seen that advantage materialize, or the niche appear. I apologize if some of the nuance of this point was lost in my "bigger, faster" figure of speech. My tl;dr here is that exotic species don't just magically, automatically win in a new environment simply because they're exotic. To thrive, their exoticism needs to confer some specific competitive advantage within the local ecosystem. I'm struggling to see what that advantage is for the Atlantic salmon in the Pacific Northwest, simply because the oceans and waterways in that region are teeming with very, very similar competitors.
- clort 9y agoI'm not sure what it means to be 'swept' into a river.. they would need to purposefully swim upstream. They might do that or they might not. Salmon live out in the sea and when they are ready (I think) follow the scents of the river of their birth to spawn. I presume that these don't actually have an impression of the scent so won't be heading anywhere. In fact, the article says they are having trouble feeding in the wild, so those that have swum 250 miles have mostly done so on empty stomachs.. because of all this I think the chance of them establishing a life is slim (but of course, there were a lot of them)
- gadders 9y agoNot sure how it works with farmed salmon, but farmed trout that are used to stock fisheries are usually triploid (and so infertile) because they grow faster.
- pvaldes 9y agoExact. This is the main point here.
- ksec 9y agoInteresting. A Naive question, how do they become triploid?
- ceejayoz 9y agohttps://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=94602 https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=94602 says they pressure-treat the eggs at a specific time, causing them to retain a chromosome.
- saalweachter 9y agoI couldn't say for certain, not being a fish farmer, but using hybrids is common in agriculture. You'll maintain multiple germ lines and cross them to produce more desirable offspring which either don't breed true or aren't viable adults or are infertile. Happens with chickens, corn, mules. Edit: just read other reply; yup, not a fish farmer.
- pvaldes 9y agoIn-vitro fertilization + genetic selection and manipulation of the eggs. A standard procedure.
- curtis 9y agoI thought this part was interesting: > More recently, Atlantic salmon have escaped fish farms in Washington by the thousands, apparently without gaining a finhold in the wild: > * 1996: 107,000 fish swim free after an anchor line fails on a salmon farm > * 1997: 369,000 fish escape while a salmon farm is towed away from a toxic algae bloom > * 1999: 115,000 fish break loose from a net-pen during a strong tidal current
- electic 9y agoIt is too bad the reason for why they never take hold is never really outlined in the article. Is it the environment? Or some other species that prevents eggs from taking hold? Either way, sounds like most most of these will also share the same fate.
- cptskippy 9y agoAre Atlantic salmon not migratory like Pacific salmon? Pacific salmon are born in fresh water rivers and travel downstream to the river. When it's time to mate, they migrate back up fresh water streams they were born in to mate and then die. If you were farm born and raised then where would you migrate to mate?
- ksec 9y agoGood Question. But do they not get fished / killed before they mate? As one of the point of farming them is that dont get to fresh water and decrease the risk of parasites.
- ddmma 9y agolooks like that crazy fish really did it as in Shawshank Redemption
- jxramos 9y ago---come on guys, let's make a swim for it! (as in run for it)
- ddmma 9y ago'no joke about it' ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ -3 auch!
- jxramos 9y agohaha, I know I got bit too, but consider that even the author John Ryan had fun with it "More recently, Atlantic salmon have escaped fish farms in Washington by the thousands, apparently without gaining a finhold in the wild", finhold as in foothold. How can that not erupt a chuckle?
- oh_sigh 9y agoWe keep hearing how farm raised fish are genetically inferior...so let's put them to the test. Do salmon need estuaries to find their way back to their breeding grounds?
- fiftyacorn 9y agoIs this treated as an environmental crime?
- pvaldes 9y agoIs more like a really, really good fishing day.
- NegativeLatency 9y agoPeople freak out in the moment, usually there's some kind of fine, and then nothing really changes. Almost like financial crime.
- phyzome 9y agoIn this case, the escaped fish have very little chance of establishing a breeding population, so it's sort of moot.
- bochoh 9y agoSo when I go to the market and get "Wild Caught Salmon" it really could be farm raised salmon that escaped and were subsequently fished in the vicinity?
- eric_h 9y agoPerhaps - if you live on the west coast and get "fresh wild caught Atlantic salmon" ;)
- 0xfeba 9y agoHa, maybe that's why they say "Wild Caught" and not "Wild".
- larubbio 9y agoA caught fish could be wild, or from a hatchery. You can tell the difference since hatchery fish have a fin removed but I imagine it's easier to not differentiate when labelling.
- appleiigs 9y agoThe meat looks significantly different when comparing wild pacific to atlantic. But yes, shady fish distributors have been caught selling cheaper fish as the more expensive.
- wil421 9y agoFor me Atlantic vs Sockeye or Copper River Salmon. Atlantic is usually a faded pink orange color. It’s more like Arctic Char. Pacific Sockeye is extremely red. Another fact, the only native Trout species in my state, Georgia, is Brook trout. They are actually closer to Arctic Char than trout or salmon.
- NegativeLatency 9y agoCopper River salmon isn't a species, it's acrually multiple kinds of pacific salmon with extra marketing and branding.
- hockeybias 9y agoA lot is inknown, but there are many risks associated with this practice. From https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/farmed-and-dangerous-pacific-salmon-confront-rogue-atlantic-cousins/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/farmed-and-danger...: - Adult farmed fish could prey on young Pacific salmon - Another risk is farmed fish transferring disease and parasites to wild salmon, a well-studied phenomenon that depends on factors including location, wild disease presence and ocean salinity. Also, farmed salmon have more contaminants according to https://www.preventivecare.com/shared/pdf/GlobalAssessmentSalmon-Hites.pdf https://www.preventivecare.com/shared/pdf/GlobalAssessmentSa... study. As an aside, do yourself a favor and read 'A Temporary Refuge: Fourteen Seasons With Wild Summer Steelhead' by Lee Spencer if you are interested in wild salmonids in the Pacific Northwest: http://www.patagonia.com/a-temporary-refuge-fourteen-seasons-with-wild-summer-steelhead-by-lee-spencer-hardcover-book/BK785.html http://www.patagonia.com/a-temporary-refuge-fourteen-seasons...
- Aloha 9y agoBased on this article, I would not be left feeling too concerned that Atlantic salmon escaped in the pacific northwest. It seems this isn't the first time its happened, and the many previous releases have come to basically nothing.