1,000 Farm-Raised Salmon Escape From Canadian Pen, Some Captured At New Brunswick Dam

Researchers for the Atlantic Salmon Federation have captured and removed 53 Atlantic salmon from a New Brunswick river after an estimated 1,000 of the farm-raised fish escaped from a Cooke Aquaculture facility near Deer Island in the Bay of Fundy.

Deer Island is just across the Maine-New Brunswick border.

According to an ASF press release, fish were released accidentally on Aug. 20 when a pipe broke while fish were being transferred from a net pen to a boat for sea lice treatment. Initial estimates by Cooke Aquaculture set the total of escapees at 2,500, but company representatives have since lowered that estimate to 1,000 fish.

And across the border in Maine, Dwayne Shaw, executive director of the Downeast Salmon Federation, said he was concerned about the escape.

To read the rest of the story, please go to: Bangor Daily News