August 24, 2017 โ Commercial fishing boats are scrambling to catch as many Atlantic salmon as they can after a net pen broke near Washingtonโs Cypress Island. Fishers reported thousands of the non-native fish jumping in the water or washing ashore.
A fish farmโs net pen failed Saturday afternoon when an anchor pulled loose and metal walkways twisted about. Onlookers said it looked like hurricane debris.
The pen, in the stateโs northwestern San Juan Islands, contained about 305,000 Atlantic salmon. Now, owner Cooke Aquaculture and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife are trying to determine how many escaped.
Kurt Beardslee, the director of the Wild Fish Conservancy Northwest, called the escape an โenvironmental nightmare.โ
Department officials blamed the structure failure on high tides caused by the eclipse โ but that explanation is being questioned because tidal waters had been higher in July.
โOur understanding is with the solar eclipse came some pretty severe tidal exchanges, and within the San Juan Islands themselves, those currents are pretty strong at times,โ Ron Warren, the departmentโs assistant director, told KUOWโs The Record.
A statement on Cooke Aquacultureโs website said that โexceptionally high tides and currents coinciding with this weekโs solar eclipseโ caused the damage.