Can't fish farmers read tidetables and predict slack moorings during extreme low tides?
Will we see a massive spike in Atlantic sightings like we did after the 1997 escape?
When were these exotics last medicated?
Are these feral salmon carrying exotic diseases risking transmission to our Pacific salmon?
Why don't we have international protocols for alien species invasions?
What competition and colonization risk does this alien ivasion pose to vulnerable weakened Pacific salmon?

The industry remains in denial - no self-sustaining population threat. Like no spawning threat (Tsitika River) right?

When are we going to shut down this "Fred Flinstone technology" (netpens) and move from closed minds to closed-loop technology?

This incident underscores that BC Fisheries Minister Dennis Streifel was dead on when he said the finfish aquaculture moratorium shouldn't be removed until netcage impacts are addressed.

Howard Breen
Habitat Campaign Coordinator
GEORGIA STRAIT ALLIANCE
Mail: S10 C30 Gabriola Island B.C. VOR 1XO Voice: 250.247.7467
GSA: 250.753.3459
Email: HBreen@island.net
Fax: 250.753.2567
Website: http://www.island.net/~gsa/



Tide currents free 100,000 penned Atlantic salmon Tuesday, June 15, 1999

By PHUONG LE

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Extreme weekend tides ripped apart several net pens, triggering the accidental release of about 100,000 Atlantic salmon near Bainbridge Island.

The trouble began when currents from the high and low tides tore steel attachment points on 10 of 18 net pens owned by Northwest Seafarms off the southwest tip of Bainbridge.

About 100,000 salmon broke free Sunday and were expected to disperse quickly to
the north and south because of the strong currents from this week's extreme tides, said Kevin Amos, fish health manager with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Sunday's incident prompted renewed criticism from salmon farm opponents, who have pressed the state to withdraw farm net-pen permits or impose new restrictions on them to stem the accidental release of farmed salmon.

The incident was the second-largest accidental release in the state, Amos said.
The largest occurred in 1997, when about 300,000 Atlantic salmon escaped from torn net pens at the same facility, then owned by Global Aqua USA.

Critics say escaping Atlantic salmon endanger weak Puget Sound wild Pacific salmon and steelhead runs. They worry that Atlantic salmon could establish a foothold here and compete with or even prey on native runs.

"You're talking about a serious threat to endangered species," Barbara Stenson, a Marine Environmental Consortium spokeswoman, said yesterday.

"This is alarming. Again, it's demonstrating that the state has taken ineffective measures to control threats to the environment from this industry."


The Marine Environmental Consortium and two other groups are appealing in Superior Court an April decision by the state Pollution Control Hearings Board.


The board upheld the consortium's claim that Atlantic salmon reproduction was a significant risk but rejected its request to impose stringent conditions on net pens.

In Canada, where salmon farming is more common than in Washington, researchers have found evidence that Atlantic salmon have spawned in the waters of Tsitika River on Vancouver Island.

Net-pen defenders, however, say escaped Atlantic salmon pose minimal risk, partly because it has never been proved that they can breed or establish self-sustaining runs in the Northwest.

"We don't think there's any real chance of adverse impact," said Pete Granger, executive director of the Washington Farmed Salmon Commission, based in Bellingham.
He said escaped Atlantic salmon are healthy and disease-free and, when free, tend to congregate in areas different than wild Pacific salmons.

Meanwhile, the Department of Fish and Wildlife encouraged sport and commercial fishermen to catch the thousands of Atlantic salmon that escaped Sunday.

Amos said his agency did not plan to recover the escaped salmon because the tides widely distributed the fish, which weigh 2 to 9 pounds.

"We're hopeful that people will recapture a lot of them . . . in ensuing months," Amos said.

Recreational salmon fishing is open in south Puget Sound but will not open until July 1 in the area where the escape occurred, he said.

The Department of Fish and Wildlife estimated the number of escaped salmon at about 100,000. But Arve Mogster, Northwest Seafarms operation manager, said it was too early to say.

"There is still fish left that we're hoping we can still get," Mogster said.
"We have been able to save some of them, and we're hoping that we can save more."

P-I reporter Phuong Le can be reached at 206-448-8128 or phuongle@seattle-pi.com

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