Atlantic salmon
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
| Atlantic salmon Conservation status: Endangered | ||||||||||||||||
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| Salmo salar Linnaeus, 1758 |
Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar, from the Latin words "Salmo" meaning salmon, and "salar" meaning "leaper") is a species of fish in the Salmonidae found in the northern Atlantic Ocean and in rivers that flow into the Atlantic.
It breeds in the rivers of western Europe from northern Portugal north to arctic Norway, Iceland, Greenland, and the east coast of North America from Connecticut in the United States north to northern Labrador in arctic Canada. At sea, it is found mainly in the waters off Greenland.
However, the wild Atlantic salmon fishery is commercially dead; after extensive habitat damage and overfishing, wild fish make up only half of one percent of the Atlantic salmon available in world fish markets. The rest are farmed, predominantly from aquaculture in Chile, Canada, Norway, and the U.K..
Escape from commercial salmon farms in the northern Pacific have introduced the Atlantic salmon into the range of the Pacific species. Extensive efforts are underway to prevent escapes and the spread of Atlantic salmon in the Pacific.
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External Links
- The Atlantic Salmon Federation (http://www.asf.ca/Overall/whoisASF.htm)
- State of Maine, Atlantic Salmon Comission (http://www.maine.gov/asc/)
- University of Massachusetts information regarding atlantic salmon (http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/conn.river/salmon.html)
- The Atlantic Salmon Museum in New Brunswick Canada (http://www.atlanticsalmonmuseum.com/)
