[env-trinity] Fish farms could push Pacific salmon to extinction: study

[Tom Stokely]

Fish farms could push Pacific salmon to extinction: study
By Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun  
December 13, 2007

Andy Clark/ReutersSockeye salmon turn red as they migrate home. A study released on Friday says that scenes like this could become increasingly rare if sea lice continue to decimate wild salmon populations.


A groundbreaking scientific study has today established for the first time a large-scale and deadly link between fish farms and sea lice infestations that threatens to wipe out entire populations of wild Pacific salmon.


An article to be published in Friday's edition of Science, one of the world's foremost scientific journals, says wild pink salmon runs on the British Columbia central coast will be extinct in as little as four years because of a cluster of salmon farms that are creating lethal infestations of sea lice in that area.


The article's authors, including University of Alberta researcher Martin Krkosek and B.C.'s Alexandra Morton, looked at 37 years' worth of Fisheries and Oceans data for 71 central coast rivers and found that wild pink runs have comfortably withstood decades of commercial fishing -- but cannot survive fish farms.

For full article:
http://www.nationalpost.com/rss/story.html?id=166582

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