September 11, 2008
40 Percent of Freshwater Fish in Peril
BY: Emily Fisher
While we at Oceana don’t technically work on freshwater species, the news today that four out of 10 freshwater fish species in North America are in peril is pretty astounding. Plus, the researchers included fish such as salmon, that live in saltwater but which migrate to freshwater at times, along with the regular dwellers of lakes, streams and rivers.The scientists found that 700 smaller but individual fish populations (subspecies) are vulnerable, threatened, or endangered. That’s up from 364 nearly two decades ago.On the list of the vulnerable are striped bass that live in the Gulf of Mexico, Bay of Fundy and southern Gulf of St. Lawrence, as well as several kinds of catfish. And Sockeye, Chinook, coho, chum and Atlantic salmon populations are also called threatened or endangered in the study. [Image of sockeye salmon: Peter Essick via nationalgeographic.com]