Maine Gov. Angus King (I) told a National Academy of Sciences panel yesterday that the feds erred when they listed Atlantic salmon in eight of the state’s rivers as endangered last year. King and the state’s senators hope the panel will find that distinct populations of wild salmon no longer exist in Maine rivers because the fish became watered down (so to speak) when hundreds of million of salmon from Canada and elsewhere were introduced to the rivers over the past 130 years to try to boost numbers. King said the question at hand was whether the remaining fish were “Maine salmon or salmon in Maine.” An endangered listing would not be warranted if a line of native salmon no longer existed. The National Marine Fisheries Service believes that stocking programs weren’t successful and native populations have persisted.
