Re: sea lice

[Dan Reynolds]

Right on Tom, Fish farms are now said to account for more than 30% of commercial salmon world wide and fact is that 90% or more the public can't tell a wild or hatchery fish from a farmed raised fish and further more they don't care.  The general public just wants the cheap price and fish farming can do that and will get more and more cost efficient as time goes on with genetic altered fish that grow faster,bigger, taste better and are cheaper per pound.

 

Unfortunately as you know our Governor as no regard for the sports fishing industry so I don't think the nets will be removed from Puget Sound any time soon.

 

Dan

----- Original Message -----

From: Tom Wolf

To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Sent: 07/13/2001 12:36:06 AM

Subject: Re: sea lice

Nicholas,

 

Its been my experience that cutthroat loaded with sea lice mix in with those

that don't. I see this all over the deep south sound and even up into the more

open main basin areas. I Believe the sea lice that were supposedly responsible

for the Irish trout problems (even though the stronger evidence was major

poaching with tight mesh nets), attached to the gills of the fish. The sea lice

in the sound are the limpet like copepods that attach themselves to the back of

the fish and are found no where near the gills. I have never been able to tell

while playing a cutt if it was infected with copepods or not until I could

clearly see his back.  I have not been able to find any good science on the

subject and do not know what the relationship between host and parasite is.  I

use the copepods as a way of gathering information on the run timing of the fish

i catch. The diversity of the runs of cutthroat put them spawning up rivers as

early as November maybe even October all the way through April and May.  The

copepods attach themselves to the cutts once they spend a certain amount of time

in the salt water so one can conclude that a cutt in Feb. or March covered with

copepods is either a fish that has wintered over in the salt or an early run

fish. In any case a cutt need only  a bit of fresh water to shake the critters.

Another gap in the science is that we have no data on the amount of copepods

before the net pens or after. Then we have to look at the life cycle of the

copepods and determine when the populations are at their greatest during the

year and what fish are present at these times. I have followed certain pods of

cutts over the years and have observed no loss of populations with fish  that

are more prone to infestation than others. A few years back when the Atlantic

salmon escaped from the pens near Bremerton, we had a fishing emergency and had

to get to the scene right away to test our various patterns on the run away

fish. I do not recall seeing any limpet like copepods on the atlantics. Did

anybody else? I can most definitely say there is no correlation between the

infestation of the sea runs and the proximity of the net pens. There is a more

dangerous threat to our cutts and salmon in the sound in the form of gill nets.

The state record sea run is around 6 lbs. How many cutts have you seen over 22

-24 inches? A four inch mesh will take these beauties out in a hurry. Just think

what it could be..............

 

The net pens could be a great help to our dwindling salmon runs in the Puget

Sound. They have the potential to take the load off our remaining wild stock (I

use the term wild loosely), while still keeping us active and interested in our

sport. Before we run the salmon farmers out of town, make sure we have  the best

science available to make our case.

 

T Wolf

 

Nicholas Lowry wrote:

 

> Thanks to all of you who replied to my question about sea lice. The

> consensus seems to be that sea run cutthroat in some areas of Puget Sound

> carry heavy loads of these parasites, whilst those from other areas don't.

>

> My reason for asking was that the last two cutts that I caught (in South

> Sound) were both very heavily infested, and one of them looked none too

> healthy with it. The only other time I caught a fish which looked like

> that was a sea run brown trout (sea trout) in Western Ireland, in the

> early 90's.

>

> I'm sure many of you who read the various angling publications will see

> where I am going with this. The sea trout fisheries in Ireland and

> Scotland collapsed in the late 80's and early 90's, shortly after the vast

> expansion of salmon farming in the area. The figures from the fishery at

> Loch Maree are something like a drop from an average of about 6000 fish

> caught per year to a total of just 50-100 fish.

>

> The reason most often put forward for this collapse was the effect of

> elevated levels of sea lice infestation caused by the presence of a

> concentrated source of lice in the salmon pens. The evidence for this is

> mostly circumstantial, but is very compelling. (This web page gives a

> decent summary of the science: http://indigo.ie/~seatrout/sos_sci.htm).

>

> >From the little I know about sea run cutthroat, they seem to have similar

> habits to sea run brown trout, in that they stay close to the coast and

> don't range very far from their natal streams. This makes them more prone

> to infestation from a local source of parasites than a salmon that leaves

> the coastal area and feeds in the open ocean. The implication of this is

> clear. With the scale of salmon farming increasing in Puget Sound, I think

> that there is reason to be concerned that there may be increased parasite

> loads on coastal salmonids.

>

> So to the next question. Where are the salmon net pens in the Sound, and

> where are the areas where the cutthroat have the greatest number of

> parasites? The studies done in Ireland and Scotland showed that there was

> a correlation between the distance from a salmon pen and the parasite

> load. Is it the same here?

>

> Nick.

>

> On Fri, 6 Jul 2001 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

>

> > I find sea lice on most Cutt's but not all.  I just read a report that said

> > it depends on the area you're fishing and I agree with that.  Some place

> > you'll find the SeaRuns just covered and others nothing at all.

> >

> > What is the pupose of your straw poll?

> >

> > Tom Bolender

> >

 

 

--- Dan Reynolds

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