December 28, 2017 — Last summer, more than 100,000 farmed Atlantic salmon spilled into Puget Sound, threatening the wild salmon population. Local fishermen scrambled to catch them. NPR’s Ari Shapiro speaks with fisherman Riley Starks about what’s happened since.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
This week we’re checking back in with people we met on the program during 2017. Over the summer, more than a hundred thousand Atlantic salmon escaped from an ocean farm in Puget Sound off the coast of Washington state. Local fishermen feared a complete disruption of the ecosystem. Back in August, I spoke with one of those fishermen, Riley Starks, who was on a hunt for the fugitive salmon.
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RILEY STARKS: Fishermen love to fish, and so there is a certain sort of joy in it. But it’s like a Fellini movie. There’s the overshadowing sort of despair, you know, that underlies it.
SHAPIRO: And Riley Starks is back with us now once again. Welcome to the program.
STARKS: Thank you, Ari – nice to be back.
SHAPIRO: Did you catch all the fish?
STARKS: We did not catch all the fish. We caught – I’m going to say about a third of the fish that escaped.
SHAPIRO: So where’d the other two-thirds go?
STARKS: Well, one-third were scooped up by Cooke themselves.
Listen to the full story at New England Public Radio