Danish anglers urged to catch 80,000 escaped trout

[JustJohn or JJ]

Danish anglers urged to catch 80,000 escaped trout

From the section Europe

It is feared that the rainbow trout could eat the eggs of wild sea trout

Up to 80,000 farmed rainbow trout have been accidentally released into the sea in Denmark, prompting a call for anglers to try to catch them.

The accident happened when a cargo ship crashed into a fish farm on the Horsens Fjord on the Jutland peninsula.

There are fears that the fish, weighing about 3kg (6lb 10oz) each, could disrupt the reproduction of other trout species.

A local environmentalist urged "anyone with fishing gear to... go fishing".

Soren Knabe, chair of the environmental group Vandpleje Fyn and a member of the Danish Angler's Association, told the Copenhagen Post that it was the worst possible time for rainbow trout to be released into Danish waters.

"Sea trout are currently coming up into Funen streams to spawn, and sea trout eggs are a favourite food for rainbow trout," said Mr Knabe, referring to Funen island, south of the farm.
'Very unfortunate'

The cargo vessel was en route from the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, to the east, to the Danish port of Kolding when it crashed on Tuesday.





Jon Svendsen, a researcher at Denmark's National Institute of Aquatic Resources, said rainbow trout were feared to pose a threat to sea trout reproduction by digging up sea trout eggs while trying to spawn themselves.

He said the release would have an immediate environmental impact and the timing was "very unfortunate".

Dr Svendsen endorsed the call for anglers to try to round up the fish. However, he said the threat was not long-term - as rainbow trout do not establish permanent wild populations in Denmark.

Of greater threat to the local environment, he said, were sand extraction for construction, invasive species, climate change - and fish farms themselves.

"Fish farms pose a much greater threat to the local marine environment, mainly because of nutrient releases into the local environment, which may be associated with algae blooms and subsequent hypoxia (low oxygen conditions)," Dr Svendsen told the BBC.


NOTE: Rainbow trout are fresh water fish. Sea trout are salt water fish. Won't the rainbows who escaped into the sea die off? It shouldn't take long.

[karl]

An very unfortunant situation, but one that occurs as a result situation such as this collusion by an ocean going vessel, or a storm result of torn inclosure netting. This occurs not so frequently with some of the fish farms in Norway with the similar release of farm fish into a fresh water source such as river. They like to use a river water way for a source of fresh water that discharges into the open sea, in this manner, the affluent from such living creatures will self clean.

There are some fish so adapted as after a time, will have their systems adapt from fresh water to salt such as Atlantic Salmon. But fresh water trout usually will die off after a time from internal organ failure. Not sure from the article if the fish farm is upstream some distance or at the water way mouth, for these waters in that area are not so deep as a sea going heavy vessel needs be to take care with watching their depth soundings so as not to drag bottom.

several issues are associated with such a loss of fresh water trout from a fish farm. One of course is the concerns of these fish eating the fresh eggs of their cousin the salt water trout, but with this, is fish farmed trout are sterol and when they inturn breed with a wild trout variety, the eggs will not mature but die and rot.

There are a multitude of concerns with fish farming. Although fish farming is a manner of providing reasonable priced fresh fish for the market. The down side is the refuse that these fish farms put into the water as down stream pollution. One of course is the affluent mixed with left over food that washes out through the netting, but the antibiotics necessary for these farm fish kept in tight quarters necessary for economic production.

It is a problem with out question when some thing goes wrong such as this occurance

Karl