Nearly 800K Salmon Escaped Last Year From Norwegian Farms - AFP

[hatrack]

Some 790,000 salmon and trout escaped from Norwegian fish farms last year, up 10 percent on the previous year and a trend that poses a serious threat to wild salmon, the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries said on Friday. The lax security at fish farms is "a criminal act that must be sanctioned the same as a hold-up or a rape," the head of the directorate, Peter Gullestad, told AFP.

The fish raised on farms are carriers of parasites such as sea lice, which infect wild salmon and other maritime life.

The fish that escape the farms, located in fjords and rivers along Norway's west coast, infect young wild salmon before they head off to the open sea, threatening their immune systems which are not yet fully developed.

"It's dramatic. We're talking about a genetic cleansing of wild salmon," said Espen Farstad, a spokesman for the Norwegian hunting and fishing association NJFF.

EDIT

http://www.terradaily.com/2006/070105140918.x6x13aiu.html

[MountainLaurel]

1. We're killing this planet

:cry:

[crikkett]

2. eww icky

farmed fish is lousy too? I knew the meat was likely to contain dioxins because of dirty water. Fish at least is one food that is labeled (farmed/wild) at our grocery stores. I wish we could know if the red meat we ate were cloned.