Salmo Domesticus

[jlrogers4]

With the rise of farmed salmon around the world, a new type of salmon was needed to efficiently grow them faster and bigger. Salmo Domesticus was bread in Norway by a cattle farm family using local salmon to create an efficient growing salmon. These salmon threaten the native salmon because they can outperform the natural salmon in the short run but cannot hold the needed fats to travel upriver. Salmon depend on genetic diversity to survive in their home rivers. There are estimated millions of farmed salmon that escape every year that threaten to mix with local salmon runs. In the book Four Fish, the writer mentions that chinook salmon took a mysterious dump between 2000 and 2001 that is still not explained to this day. A small comeback was mentioned but evidence has shown that they are still deciding. The writer mentions how Alaska is one of the last strong salmon runs in the world and how the pressure on Fish and Game has made them very cautious on when to open the season for commercial fishing. It seems that the issue is related because the Fish and Game of Alaska has seen the mistakes of other states and countries that have destroyed their own runs. I believe that their precautions of banning farmed fish in Alaska is one example of the threat farmed salmon pose to Alaskan native salmon that already have many challenges to face. It seems that these issues are related because they both threaten each other from having success. Fish farmers want to continue to farm salmon and want to grow salmon in rich fjord waters like British Columbia and fjords in Chile. Chinook salmon are threatened by competition from the fast-growing Salmo Domesticus salmon that can out-compete the chinooks for food and mix their genetics that the chinooks need to survive to swim up the lengthy Yukon River.

[Author]

Posts