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Article: NEW EVIDENCE FISH FARMS HURT WILD SALMON SEA LICE THREATEN TO WIPE OUT RUNS, RESEARCHERS SAY.(News)
- Article from:
- Seattle Post-Intelligencer
- Article date:
- December 14, 2007
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 Seattle Post-Intelligencer. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of the Dialog Corporation by Gale Group. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: P-I STAFF AND NEWS SERVICES
Researchers have new evidence that as the density of salmon farms increases, they can drive nearby wild salmon runs to extinction.
The problem is sea lice, a natural parasite that normally attaches to adult salmon with little ill effect and has little contact with vulnerable juvenile salmon. All that changes, however, when fish farms move in.
A study in the journal Science on Friday shows that sea lice infestations around salmon farms in British Columbia's Broughton Archipelago have reached a density so high they could completely wipe out pink salmon in rivers where migration routes cross ocean-based farms. ...