On Wednesday, the company told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that the number could be “much higher”. “So we’d like to see as many of these escaped fish caught as possible.”As environmentalists voiced concerns that the Atlantic salmon could crossbreed with the Pacific salmon or compete with them for food, researchers were divided on the potential impact. And the honest answer is we don’t know,” said John Volpe, a University of Victoria professor who has studied Atlantic salmon released in the Pacific. This weekend’s escape was large, but not unprecedented, he said, pointing to the deliberate release of Atlantic salmon on the west coast in the early 1900s. “Given the very precarious state of most Pacific salmon populations – they’re basically teetering on the edge – you don’t need some catastrophic event to push them over.

Source: The Guardian August 24, 2017 02:48 UTC