Salmon-Killing Virus Seen for First Time in the Wild on the Pacific Coast

[alp227]

Source: NYT

A lethal and highly contagious marine virus has been detected for the first time in wild salmon in the Pacific Northwest, researchers in British Columbia said on Monday, stirring concern that it could spread there, as it has in Chile, Scotland and elsewhere.

Farms hit by the virus, infectious salmon anemia, have lost 70 percent or more of their fish in recent decades. But until now, the virus, which does not affect humans, had never been confirmed on the West Coast of North America.

The researchers, from Simon Fraser University and elsewhere, said at a news conference in Vancouver that the virus had been found in 2 of 48 juvenile fish collected as part of a study of sockeye salmon in Rivers Inlet, on the central coast of British Columbia. The study was undertaken after scientists observed a decline in the number of young sockeye.

Richard Routledge, an environmental scientist at the university who leads the sockeye study, suggested that the virus had spread from the province’s aquaculture industry, which has imported millions of Atlantic salmon eggs over the last 25 years, primarily from Iceland and Scandinavia. He acknowledged that no direct evidence of that link existed, but noted that the two fish had tested positive for the European strain of infectious salmon anemia.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/18/science/18salmon.html

[truthisfreedom]

1. Oh no!

Crap, we have enough problems with salmon shortages already. Dangit!

[msongs]

2. corporate america strikes again nt

[AsahinaKimi]

3. If this is deadly enough, it could kill off all the orca...

They live on Salmon up there in the pacific north west.

[Mnemosyne]

12. Third killer whale found dead in Alaska river:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2130395

Have no clue if these are connected, but...

[AsahinaKimi]

14. I am willing to bet its connected...

Orca's love Salmon.

[Mnemosyne]

15. Someday more will understand how connected we all are... Those poor whales are

are just more of those canaries... :(

[JJW]

4. Wall Street farmers -destroying food supply

And up goes prices and profits. Down goes American health. Then up goes health care premiums. Good thing we got mandated payments to corporate insurers.

[valerief]

10. Who can afford the mandated premiums? nt

[wordpix]

5. and those salmon runs would not decline due to overfishing & habitat loss, right?

:crazy:

There may well be a virus that runs wild due to our polluted oceans and inlets. But my guess is most of the declines are due to overfishing and habitat loss.

[harmonicon]

7. reading is your friend (nt)

[JJW]

8. You need tp read better

It states it started from farm fish. You throw thousands of fish into a small netted area. Give them all kinds of antibiotics to prevent an epidemic, you feed them chicken poop from mega chicken farms. And you end up with super bug. Really, it takes an idiot not to see this coming. But politicians will claim, "who could ever, image".

[valerief]

11. +1000

[sulphurdunn]

9. That is only partially correct.

Wild Pacific Salmon fisheries are managed sustainably in the Pacific Northwest. While habitat loss and pollution are major concerns, the biggest concerns, for many years, at least among commercial fishermen, have been the proliferation of hatchery programs and Atlantic Salmon fish farms. I know that at least by the early 80s, Atlantic Salmon were escaping from pens to mingle with their Pacific cousins. That is not a good thing. Hatcheries primarily compensate for habitat loss but produce a less hardy and more uniform fish. That is not good either. If this virus affects all salmon, it could conceivably affect all salmonid species, collapse the commercial salmon fishery and make its way into fresh water habitats. That is the worst case scenario

[Bandit]

13. Actually in Alaska salmon stocks are considered "very healthy"

by marine biologists and Alaska Dept of Fish and Game.. There are zero dams on any of the salmon producing rivers in Alaska and as anyone knowledgeable in fishery matters knows, dams are the number one culprit in declining salmon numbers on the West Coast of America (excluding Alaska)

[saras]

6. Thank you, fish farmers. We all knew it was coming from the beginning.