A Humber River Jumper at Humber Falls.(Photo Credit: Tom Moffatt/ASF)

Choose Your Seafood Wisely - Keep Wild Atlantic Salmon Leaping

The fact that the King of Fish inspires many people is no surprise, and this is reinforced by the number of expected attendees at numerous fund raisers in the United States and Canada taking place this fall.

From September to November, the Atlantic Salmon Federation (ASF), an international charitable organization, will raise funds for Atlantic salmon conservation at dinners and receptions in Chicago, New York, Montreal, Ottawa, St. Johns Newfoundland and Saint John New Brunswick, with the help of live and silent auctions of treasured items that appeal to anglers and non-anglers alike.

Atlantic salmon released on Bonaventure River. (Photo Credit: Kelsey Taylor/ASF)

Wild Atlantic salmon are listed as endangered in Maine and their southern Canadian range and cannot be fished. The good news is that there are still many more northern rivers in Canada that draw anglers from the United States, Canada and overseas to fly fish for this amazing fish. Known historically as “the leaper” because of its acrobatic ability to jump up to 14 feet in the air, people can still meet this creature face-to-face, whether on the shores of a wild salmon river or in interpretive centres scattered throughout eastern Canada and north-eastern United States.

Many North Americans recognize the importance of these fish to the environment as they make their challenging migrations from natal streams to high seas feeding grounds and back again to their birthplaces to spawn.

Salmon in the Sun, York River, Gaspé. (Photo Credit: Charles Cusson/ASF)

Where you do not find wild Atlantic salmon is in grocery stores and restaurants. The vulnerable health of wild Atlantic salmon populations brought an end to the commercial fishery for them in the United States in the mid twentieth century and in Canada, by the twenty-first century. Instead, grocery stores and restaurants offer farmed Atlantic salmon for sale.

ASF's Graham Chafe pulls up a sonic receiver in the Baie des Chaleurs in late June 2012, (Photo Credit: ASF)

Many sustainable seafood advisory groups that are raising awareness about the importance of buying seafood from sustainable sources actually advise consumers to avoid farmed Atlantic salmon.

One of the reasons for this is the threat of genetic and environmental impacts of salmon that are grown in open net pen cages in the sea. For more than two decades, ASF has studied the interactions between wild and farmed salmon that escape sea cages and enter wild salmon rivers. Such a river is the Magaguadavic in southwest New Brunswick, the centre of the salmon farming industry in the Bay of Fundy. The Magaguadavic is the North American index river for researching what happens when farmed salmon escape the confines of their nets in the ocean, because of storm and predator damage, or leak from their freshwater hatcheries, and enter wild salmon rivers.

Scientific studies have documented that farmed escapees actually can survive in these rivers, competing with wild salmon for food and habitat and can interbreed with wild stocks, causing fitness reduction in wild salmon as a result of the interbreeding .

In other words, the interbreeding ruins the ability of wild Atlantic salmon to jump waterfalls and make their amazing migrations. The river’s wild salmon run will, over time, die out. The run to the Magaguadavic has been reduced to only one or two wild salmon annually, despite comprehensive restoration attempts, from an average run of 800 in the 1980s before the salmon farming industry gained its strong foothold.

Satellite Tag and Harness, a tool of ASF's Research program in 2012. After five months the tag will pop off, and transmit data of path and depth to a satellite. (Photo Credit: ASF Research)

Consumers who wish to eat products that are grown in an environmentally-sustainable way can check out the websites that provide this advice, such as Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch, SeaChoice and Vancouver Aquarium Ocean Wise.

About The Atlantic Salmon Federation

The Atlantic Salmon Federation is dedicated to the conservation, protection and restoration of wild Atlantic salmon and the ecosystems on which their well being and survival depend.

The Atlantic Salmon Federation (ASF) is a certified “1% for the Planet” non-profit partner. “1% for the Planet” is a global movement of more than 1,300 companies that donate 1% of their sales to a network of more than 2,100 environmental organizations worldwide. 

Despite conservation measures, wild Atlantic salmon are dying at sea by the thousands, and while no one is entirely certain of the reasons, ASF is a leader in conducting research at sea to solve the mystery.

For the past 17 years, ASF has led in the development of pioneering sonic telemetry technology, following Atlantic salmon down rivers, across vast stretches of ocean, and uncover details of both migration, and the mysterious mortality impacting the species.

Source: ASF

Margaret E.L. Stacey
Editor Companies and Products
[email protected]
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