King Salmon Return to the Elwah River- And guess who else has discovered a new home?

The miracle of life seen in native salmon 

returning to a habitat recreated in the Elwah River.

[click here to view video of spawning]

Great effort and faith returns a habitat buried for decades.
Al Bergstein's Olympic Penninsula Environmental News writes on the return of King salmon to the Elwah River and spawning habitat recreated by the removal of dams.  As Mr. Bergstein notes, it took great effort, focus and money to remove the Elwah Dam and Glines Canyon Dam which had been in place for over 100 years. That removal freed the river, recreating habitat lost to native salmon, part of the Lower Elwah Klallam Tribe's traditions for untold generations.

Guess who else has discovered the Elwah River?

Thank you Cooke Aquaculture.

Nonnative invasive Atlantic salmon

escaped from Cooke Aquaculture's failed net pen

moving into the Elwah River.

It's "only one" because the river is closed to fishing. How many more are migrating upstream, undetected, to a new habitat? 

The Department of Fish and Wildlife's "catch map" now notes a nonnnative invasive Atlantic salmon having been caught just up from the mouth of the Elwah River on September 6. Despite the fact that the Elwah River is closed to fishing. These fish being caught by citizens and being reported to WDFW are not being snagged. They are aggressively pursuing lures and/or bait in order to survive. They are far from what NOAA has described as "couch potatoes" who will linger around pens if they escape and who don't know how to eat anything but artificial feed and coloring. 

This is not the same.

Cooke Aquaculture's failed net pen in August.

This, after a partial collapse in July.

"It's happened before, don't worry. Trust us. We have studies." It's not the same.

What happened on August 19 has not happened before. Attempts to establish Atlantic salmon in the past did not use 160,000 mature, 10 pound adult salmon released in the heart of Puget Sound. Escapes in the past were not 160,000 adult salmon, mature and ready to spawn. They were young, immature salmon, adolescents lost in the woods. Cooke Aquaculture, NOAA and other agencies attempting to pacify the public by using self serving studies only continues to darken the veil industrial aquaculture has created through false narratives and contract scientists in order for a few large corporations to profit greatly from the public waters of Puget Sound and rivers feeding into that body.

"Look at this new home they made for us!"

Atlantic salmon do not belong here.

Get involved. Demand these pens be removed and moved to upland, isolated facilities. 

Chris Dunagan writes in the Kitsap Sun about the possibility of the Puget Sound Partnership agreeing that these net pens should be banned from Washington's waters. Cooke Aquaculture saying "we're sorry" isn't good enough. These should never have been allowed in the first place. Claiming they "can do better" is not good enough. Agencies forming emergency response teams, after the fact and all fumbling along the way is not good enough. It only takes one mistake to destroy what took millions of dollars, untold hours and perseverance to do - recreate a habitat for native salmon to return to, spawn at, and create a new circle of life for future generations.  It was not done for nonnative invasive Atlantic salmon to claim as their new home.

Atlantic "couch potato" Salmon Reach the Columbia River: A 271 Mile Journey

Update: 9/8 - WDFW has removed the reported catch of 2 non-native Atlantic salmon from the mouth of the Columbia River. This leaves the longest known distance traveled by the non-native Atlantic salmon at ~169 miles, caught off the west coast of Vancouver Island, near Tofino, British Columbia. Non-native Atlantic salmon continuing to migrate upstream in Washington rivers are indicated by reported catches from the Puyallup, Snohomish, Skagit, and Nooksack Rivers.

NOAA's Michael Rust

on non-native Atlantic Salmon:

"These things [Atlantic salmon] are kind of couch potatoes.."

20 years at NOAA's Northwest Fisheries 

Science Center in Seattle

Aquaculture is not terrestrial farming and farmed salmon are not dairy cows.

For the past 3 weeks NOAA's Michael Rust has been presented as the government's expert researcher who has attempted to minimize the risk of the 160,000 non-native Atlantic salmon which escaped from Cooke Aquaculture's failed net pen. As recently as September 1, Dr. Rust was still being quoted as saying the escaped salmon wouldn't travel far, comparing them to a "dairy cow" in the Serengeti. It's a bad analogy. For Dr. Rust, this incident has also largely dismissed his 2001 technical memorandum he co-authored which said escaped Atlantic salmon "carry very little or no risk" to wild native species. 

Note: This technical memorandum, "The Net-pen SalmonFarming Industry in the Pacific Northwest",  continues to be used by industry in support of expanding operations, most recently in Cooke Aquaculture's attempt to move and expand its operations into the Straight of Juan de Fuca (see reference to document submitted for permit here in 2016).

The 271 mile journey 

of 2 "couch potatoes". 

These are ripe potatoes ready to procreate, not adolescents.

Washington's Department of Fish and Wildlife's "Atlantic Salmon Catch Map" shows the invasive non-native Atlantic salmon are now entering freshwater streams and rivers of Washington, and now through the Columbia River, Oregon as well. Seeking to spawn where the endangered native species do. Unlike the failed attempts to introduce Atlantic salmon in the past which are referenced in Dr. Rust's "technical memorandum", consisting of young salmon or eggs, these are mature and well fed salmon with a drive to prorecreate. Unlike the escaped salmon referenced which failed to gain a foothold in the past, which weighed between .5 to 1.5 kg, these salmon are well fed, mature adults weighing over 4.5kg. They are neither "couch potatoes" nor "dairy cattle" in the Serengeti. They are a non-native and invasive species which has been let loose in a marine environment, in large part due to NOAA's drive to increase aquaculture and minimize the very real risks which industrial aquaculture brings with it.

271 miles away, looking for a new home.

From WDFW catch map, showing 

recent catches at the mouth 

of the Columbia River.

Don't know what you've lost till it's gone.

Rushing blindly along in support of an industry who sees Puget Sound's marine environment as little more than a template to generate profits from has resulted in one of the most significant and adverse impacts in recent history. Blinded by "science" created to support agendas with little more than higher profits as the goal, county, state and federal agencies have been led down a path believing aquaculture, of any type, must be good, thereby needing little oversight. Relying on industry's Best Management Practices results in a reliance on the fox in the hen house to police itself. In this case, instead of Cooke stopping production in its known failing net pen, it instead convinced agencies that one more cycle of farmed salmon could be squeezed out of its failing pen. When it failed, Cooke flailed between "the eclipse"  and the "addition of 3 million pounds" of free swimming salmon as the cause. Their original estimate of 6,000 salmon instead was 160,000 mature, non-native Atlantic salmon which escaped. It was Cooke, it was the agencies responsible for regulating them, and it was the public for not fighting hard enough to prevent industrial scale aquaculture from transforming a critical marine ecosystem.  

Get involved, and don't give up. "Sorry Phil. You were right."

Don't believe that the profits of a few corporations are in the state wide interest. Tell your elected officials it is time to remove these industrial scale net pen operations from Washington's waters and stop the expansion of industrial aquaculture. Alison Arthur's editorial in the Port Townsend Leader apologizing to past Jefferson County Commissioner Phil Johnson who opposed DOE forcing the county to allow net pens is something everyone should read.

Contact information for state and national elected officials may be found here:
http://app.leg.wa.gov/DistrictFinder/
Tell Governor Inslee if he really cares about Puget Sound, now is the time to stand up and tell DOE to allow counties to ban these operations.
http://www.governor.wa.gov/…/cont…/send-gov-inslee-e-message
Help support those who are focused on protecting the Salish Sea's diversity and health from these industrial scale operations:
Our Sound, Our Salmon
https://www.oursound-oursalmon.org/#home
Wildfish Conservancy
http://wildfishconservancy.org/
Center for Food Safety:
https://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/

Non-native Atlantic Salmon Spread Throughout Salish Sea and Up Inland Rivers

Non-native Atlantic Salmon

Migrate to Fresh Water Rivers 

in Washington State

It's quite a spread that's been offered to over 160,000 mature non-native Atlantic salmon. 
The Department of Fish and Wildlife "catch map" shows that contrary to NOAA's Michael Rust that escaped non-native Atlantic salmon being "couch potatoes," and others saying they would not wander far from pens should they escape because they are "used to being fed", these non-native salmon are anything but that. Worse, they are now migrating up rivers in Washington into habitat used by native salmon, putting both habitat at risk and young native salmon at risk through being consumed by the non-native Atlantic salmon. These salmon are mature and ready to spawn.

"You look in pretty good shape to me."

"I've been fed omega 3's, antibiotics, 

and swam laps in the pen regularly."

And, they're mature, heading up Washington rivers.

Bad timing for fish to escape
People have claimed there is little to worry about habitat displacement as attempts to plant these non-native salmon in the past have failed, with no populations taking hold. The difference is in the past, young salmon were used, not mature salmon, ready to spawn, like those which escaped from the net pen on August 19. Those which escaped are laden with eggs, looking for a place to reproduce. As seen from the area they have spread out over the past 2 weeks, they are anything but "couch potatoes". These have become an invasive species, due directly to mis-management and to a lack of oversight by all agencies.

Get involved
Tell your elected officials it is time to remove these industrial scale operations from Washington's waters. The risk is not "presumptive", it is real.
Contact information for state and national elected officials may be found here:
http://app.leg.wa.gov/DistrictFinder/
Tell Governor Inslee if he really cares about Puget Sound, now is the time to stand up.
http://www.governor.wa.gov/contact/contact/send-gov-inslee-e-message
Help support those who are focused on protecting the Salish Sea's diversity and health from these operations and lack of regulatory oversight:
Our Sound, Our Salmon
https://www.oursound-oursalmon.org/#home
Wildfish Conservancy
http://wildfishconservancy.org/
Center for Food Safety:
https://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/#