Thousands of farmed salmon broke out of a pen in Iceland this August, but don't start cheering for the escapees. The farmed fish pose great risk to the area's wild salmon, whose numbers have shrunk over the decades, according to the Guardian. Harm to wild fish comes from the spread of sea lice that thrive in farming conditions and through breeding. Interbreeding produces offspring that mature too quickly and have a harder time reproducing in nature. "This is an environmental catastrophe," said Guðmundur Hauker Jakobsson, the vice-chair of local fishing clubs who has captured farmed fish for analysis. "If they breed, the salmon will lose their ability to survive."
This flight follows a 2021 escape, when 81,000 farmed fish broke into the wild, and the company responsible was fined for not reporting the escape. The August breakout is currently under investigation. The CEO of the company responsible, Arctic Fish, has apologized, and could face two years jail time if found guilty of negligence. Fish farming is a relatively new industry in Iceland that environmentalists say causes damage from pesticides used to treat sea lice and pollution from large amounts of organic sewage. "This is more than a wake-up call," says Jón Kaldal of Icelandic Wildlife Fund. "All red lights should be blinking. You're talking about the future of wild salmon."
Worldwide, the wild Atlantic salmon population has dwindled to 3 million to 4 million (down from the 8 million to 10 million estimated in the '70s). They are a crucial species in the environment for many mammals and birds. One place that bucks the trend: Maine's Penobscot River, where the AP reports wild salmon had their most productive year since 2011. But local advocates say the growth doesn't compare with the area's past, when tens of thousands of salmon swam there: "In the grand scheme of things, it's still abysmal," says the fisheries program manager for the Penobscot Nation. (An annual salmon festival went without salmon this year).
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