Hybridization – Escaped farmed salmon are breeding with wild salmon and producing offspring

nl-aquaculture-fish-farming-cage-open-water-20130927Research has confirmed that escaped farmed salmon are breeding with wild salmon and producing offspring in many rivers in Newfoundland. “We did find evidence of successful breeding between farmed and wild salmon. Approximately a third of the individuals we sampled showed evidence of hybrid ancestry,” said Department of Fisheries and Oceans scientist Ian Bradbury, of the unpublished study presented at an international aquaculture conference in St. John’s on Tuesday. Researchers studied thousands of fish in 18 rivers on the island’s south coast, and found evidence of interbreeding in 17 of them. “It was widespread across a suite of the rivers that we looked at. I think there was only one river where we didn’t see evidence of hybridization,” said Bradbury. It’s estimated that over the decades since the advent of aquaculture, more than 750,000 salmon have escaped from fish farms in the province. The new study sheds light on what happens to them in the wild. Read the story here 11:26

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