The effects of climate variability on Pacific salmon abundance are uncertain because historical records are short and are complicated by commercial harvesting and habitat alteration. We use lake sediment records of delta15N and biological indicators to reconstruct sockeye salmon abundance in the Bristol Bay and Kodiak Island regions of Alaska over the past 300 years. Marked shifts in population...

The AquAdvantage salmon is poised to become the world’s first genetically engineered animal for human consumption. It is a patented fish created and owned by a leading aquaculture technology corporation. The species has been genetically altered so that the fundamental traits and characteristics of an Atlantic salmon are blended with an eel-like species called the ocean pout and a salmon native ...

Industrial salmon farms are reservoirs of parasitic sea lice (Lepeophtheirus salmonis and Caligus spp.), which causes both production inefficiencies and contributes to population-level declines of wild salmon and trout. Current control methods vary in effect and stimulate controversy by the discharge of chemicals into the environment. An alternate control method uses a thin, chemical-infused oi...

The onset of exogenous feeding, when juveniles emerge from the gravel, is a critical event for salmonids where early emergence and large size provide a competitive advantage in the wild. Studying 131 farmed, hybrid and wild Norwegian Atlantic salmon families, originating from four wild populations and two commercial strains, we investigated whether approximately 10 generations of selection for ...

In Scotland and elsewhere, there are concerns that escaped farmed Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.) may impact on wild salmon stocks. Potential detrimental effects could arise through disease spread, competition, or inter-breeding. We investigated whether there is evidence of a direct effect of recorded salmon escape events on wild stocks in Scotland using anglers' counts of caught salmon (class...

Growth hormone (GH) transgenes can significantly accelerate growth rates in fish and cause associated alterations to their physiology and behaviour. Concern exists regarding potential environmental risks of GH transgenic fish, should they enter natural ecosystems. In particular, whether they can reproduce and generate viable offspring under natural conditions is poorly understood. In previous s...

The phenotypic correlates of pathogenicity for Infectious salmon anemia virus (ISAV) in salmonid fishes have not been thoroughly studied to date. In this study, a comparison was made of 13 different strains of ISAV, isolated from different geographical regions between 1997 and 2004, for their infectivity in three fish species [Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) an...

Sex steroids appear to be responsible for hyperactivation of the hypothalamus-pituitary-interrenal (HPI) axis that occurs in mature semelparous Pacific salmon as a prelude to post-spawning (programmed) death. This study was undertaken to examine the direct effects of sex steroids on interrenal activity of semelparous (chinook salmon) and iteroparous (rainbow trout) salmonids using an in vitro i...

The new book, Salmon: Biology, Ecological Impacts and Economic Importance, is a collection of scientific reviews in diverse fields of salmonid ecology, morphology, genetics, fisheries, aquaculture, and economic importance of salmon. Twenty-eight authors from seven “salmon-dependent” (a word from Chapter 14 that caught my fancy) countries represent 15 chapters filled with both well-known and new...

Pacific salmon colonized the west coast of Canada following the last ice age (Groot and Margolis 1991) and are now found throughout British Columbia. British Columbia salmon have been harvested by members of the aboriginal community for several thousand years (Kew and Griggs 1991). More recently however, particularly over the last 125 years, salmon have also become the focus of intense commerci...