> More recently, Atlantic salmon have escaped fish farms in Washington by the thousands, apparently without gaining a finhold in the wild:
> * 1996: 107,000 fish swim free after an anchor line fails on a salmon farm
> * 1997: 369,000 fish escape while a salmon farm is towed away from a toxic algae bloom
> * 1999: 115,000 fish break loose from a net-pen during a strong tidal current
My uncle was among the pioneers of salmon farming in the south of Chile on the early 70s. A storm destroyed their first farm causing salmon to escape to the ocean. The escaped salmon (chinook) started showing back in noticeable numbers just around 10 years ago.
Either way, sounds like most most of these will also share the same fate.
Pacific salmon are born in fresh water rivers and travel downstream to the river. When it's time to mate, they migrate back up fresh water streams they were born in to mate and then die.
If you were farm born and raised then where would you migrate to mate?
As one of the point of farming them is that dont get to fresh water and decrease the risk of parasites.
Someone should tag and release a bunch of farm raised salmon and see what happens to them.