Young Fish Face Deadly Hitchhikers

Salmon farming practices have come under fire for polluting oceans and damaging marine ecosystems. Now a new study heaps more criticism on the farms, suggesting that parasitic sea lice that flourish in salmon farms can kill as many as 95% of migrating wild Pacific salmon. The study, the first that attempts to quantify the effect of sea lice infection on wild Pacific salmon populations, further fuels an ongoing controversy over salmon farming practices in the United States and Canada.