Salmon escape report unintentionally delayed

PORTLAND – Conservation groups say the escape of 100,000 farm-raised salmon into Machias Bay in December wasn’t deliberately kept quiet by state officials.

The salmon were released into Machias Bay when a storm packing gusts up to 120 mph from Dec. 17-18 wrecked a steel cage owned by Atlantic Salmon of Maine in which 175,000 fish were growing to maturity. As many as 100,000 of the salmon escaped into Machias Bay.

Government scientists fear farm-raised fish that escape from their pens could introduce diseases to salmon in the wild and even foul up the wild salmon’s unique genetics by breeding with them.

The state Department of Marine Resources learned about the accidental release of fish from pens owned by Atlantic Salmon of Maine the day after it happened, but didn’t report the episode to federal agencies until Feb. 2, seven weeks later.

Salmon conservation groups made the incident public last week and wondered publicly why the state had waited so long to disclose the incident.

But environmental activists say they’re satisfied that the delayed disclosure was unintentional.

“I certainly don’t think that there’s an attempt to have covered this up,” said Jeff Reardon, New England conservation director for Trout Unlimited. “I think it’s unfortunate that the news wasn’t out earlier, but I don’t think it’s sinister. I think it demonstrates that we need to find more resources to devote to this issue.”

Andrew Goode, director of U.S. programs for the Atlantic Salmon Federation, said there’s no question that a mistake was made in not reporting the escape immediately, even though there were no requirements to do so. But he said he didn’t think there was anything “deceitful or purposeful” about it.

Reardon said news of the escape should have reached federal agencies charged with protecting salmon immediately because there might have been something they could have done in response.

“Potentially the weirs could have been put back in the rivers,” he said. “The other thing is we definitely think it’s time to figure out how this event happened and how to prevent it from happening again, and the sooner we get started on that the better.”

The escape has been described as the largest documented such incident in the United States or the Canadian Maritime Provinces. But it was not the first.