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Dec
13
2007
Salmon farms pose a greater threat to wild stocks than the fisheries they replace
Long-held suspicions that fish farms act as disease reservoirs for wild populations are well founded, according to findings published this week in Science. University of Alberta mathematical biologist Marty Krkošek and colleagues show that outbreaks of salmon lice Lepeophtheirus salmonis among wild pink salmon Oncorhynchus gorbuscha populations — the direct result of infestations within the open-net aquaculture pens the juveniles must swim past on their migration to the sea — can bring virtual extinction in just four generations. The pressure wild stocks are placed under by the disease risk from fish farms is much greater than that caused by over-exploitative harvesting: the very factor that prompted aquaculture in the first place. It’s surely time for a re-think on fish farming. Source: Krkošek M, Ford JS, Morton A, Lele S, Myers RA & Lewis MA (2007) Declining wild salmon populations in relation to parasites from farm salmon. Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1148744
Related stories in Conservation magazine: Salmon Farms Create Deadly Clouds of Sea Lice | 10 Solutions to Save the Ocean
Image © David Hyde
Filed Under Economics and conservation, Endangered species, Fresh water, Marine, Monitoring, Restoration, Socio-political issues, Tools and technology |
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[...] Society for Conservation Biology’s Journal Watch Online: Long-held suspicions that fish farms act as disease reservoirs for wild populations are well [...]
[...] staggering 63 percent. Decreases of 50 percent per generation are commonplace. The data build on an earlier, smaller scale study, and make fish farms look ever more unsustainable. It’s almost enough to make one long for [...]