Net cages from a salmon farm. (Photo: Cooke Aquaculture)

Eclipse's high tides cause mass farmed Atlantic salmon escape

UNITED STATES
Wednesday, August 23, 2017, 02:50 (GMT + 9)

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) is urging the public to help recapture Atlantic salmon that were accidentally released into the waters between Anacortes and the San Juan Islands from an imploded net holding 305,000 fish at a Cooke Aquaculture fish farm.

The news has caused concern among tribal fishers, who call the accident “a devastation,” reported Seattle Times.

Fish program assistant director for the WDFW, Ron Warren, detailed the fish are about 10 pounds each. The net contained some 3 million pounds but no one knows yet how many fish escaped when it imploded at around 4:00 pm.

The director ensured that the department has been monitoring the situation and crafting a spill-response plan with Cooke.

Meanwhile, in a statement, Cooke said “exceptionally high tides and currents coinciding with this week’s solar eclipse” caused the damage. The firm estimates several thousand salmon escaped following “structural failure” of a net pen.

“It will not be possible to confirm exact numbers of fish losses until harvesting is completed and an inventory of fish in the pens has been conducted,” a source from the firm pointed out.

The spill comes as the company is considering a controversial net-pen operation in the Strait of Juan de Fuca at Port Angeles, east of the Ediz Hook.

Warren stated that the WDFW agreed about that concern and that the department authorised commercial and tribal fishers to sell the Atlantic salmon specimens they catch.

“Catch as many as you want,” he said. “We don’t want anything competing with our natural populations. We have never seen a successful crossbreeding with Atlantic salmon, but we don’t want to test the theory.”

On the other hand, he explained the fish were placed in the pens in May 2016 and treated for yellow mouth, a bacterial infection, in July 2016 and that the fish that escaped are believed to be healthy and disease-free.

 
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