ESCAPED FARM SALMON RAISE ALARM IN MAINE
from The Boston Globe
The mighty December Northeaster rocked Maine's Machias Bay, buckling steel
cages that held thousands of farm-raised fish and uprooting the pens'
moorings.
By the storm's end, conservationists' worst fear for this burgeoning industry
had come true: More than 100,000 fish swam out of the pens into the wild - the
largest known escape of aquaculture fish in the eastern United States.
Some of the young fish, fattened up for restaurant dinner plates, were quickly
consumed by hungry seals. But the unknown number that survived have the
potential to severely weaken future generations of wild salmon in three Maine
rivers. If the young fish make their way to the rivers when they get older,
they may mate with the wild salmon.
But word of the accident, which environmentalists consider a potential
ecological disaster, reached federal officials only this month, partly because
of loopholes in the law and a Maine state official's forgetfulness. Yesterday,
one day after they learned of the accident, the conservation groups Atlantic
Salmon Federation, Trout Unlimited, and Conservation Law Foundation called for
a moratorium on new fish farms and an overhaul of the entire regulation
system.
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/054/nation/Escaped_farm_salmon_raise_alarm
_in_Maine+.shtml
_____________________________________________________
Alan H. Savitzky
Dept. of Biological Sciences e-mail: asavitzk at odu.edu
Old Dominion University voice: 757-683-4203
Norfolk, VA 23529-0266 fax: 757-683-5283
USA home:
757-623-5966
------------------------------------------------------------------------
To get off ACN-L send a note to majordomo at acn.ca with unsubscribe acn-l
ACN-L archives are at http://www.peter.unmack.net/archive/acn
The Aquatic Conservation Network is dedicated to the exchange of
information regarding aquatic conservation issues. http://www.acn.ca
ACN-L is hosted by Gordon Dewis (gordon at pinetree.org) at www.pinetree.org