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
>
