The Russian invaders that could wipe out our salmon

BRITAIN’S endangered wild salmon are facing a deadly new threat from a foreign invader.

It is feared the Pacific pink salmon will compete with our native species for food and bring with it diseases and parasites. And the Environment Agency is so concerned it has ordered fishermen to kill any they catch.

Our own wild salmon are already struggling against threats including pollution and thriving populations of the birds that feed on them.

The Pacific fish, which are also known as humpback salmon, are believed to reached our shores from icy rivers in the far north of Russia. So far around 200 have been caught off the coast of Yorkshire, the North East and Scotland. Others have made it inland, with catches reported in the River Tyne and in the River Coquet in Northumberland.

Experts believe they have travelled 10,000 miles from their usual breeding grounds, swimming around the top of Scandinavia and into the North Sea.

The Russians kept thousands of them in fish farms in rivers in the country’s far north but the species has now established natural populations across the region.

Mark Lloyd, of the Angling Trust, said: ‘The news is unwelcome. Any other species which aren’t meant to be around is likely to be bad news. They might conflict with Atlantic salmon.

‘The advice to anglers is if they are sure it’s a Pacific salmon they should kill it when they catch it and report it to the Environment Agency.

‘Atlantic salmon stocks are facing a whole range of threats at the moment – netting, agricultural pollution and huge numbers of cormorants and goosanders preying on them.

‘Stocks are in decline and the last thing we need is another thing to add to the list of threats. If it got worse we would have to look at more serious methods like putting fish traps in the rivers but that could pose a risk to Atlantic salmon and sea trout too.’ An Environment Agency spokesman said: ‘ There have been a small number of verified reports of the non-native northern Pacific humpback salmon in English rivers.

‘We continue to monitor the situation and will do practical tests if specimens of this fish are recovered.’

Wild Atlantic salmon are endangered under the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s red list of threatened species in the world.

They are native to north- east North America, Iceland, Europe, and north-western Russia.

European and American populations of Atlantic salmon share the same feeding grounds off the coast of Greenland.

They have a milder flavour than Pacific varieties and, aside from the wild populations, the species is intensively farmed. It has a high omega 3 content.

The Pacific salmon is native to cold waters from northern California to Alaska and from Siberia to northern Japan.

Populations were introduced in the White Sea and Barents Sea off the north of Russia, from where they have reached rivers in Norway, Sweden and Iceland.

Their flesh is softer than most salmon and not as oily. It too is intensively farmed and is mostly sold frozen or canned.

Both types of fish return to rivers from the sea to breed.