New footage released to DeSmog Canada shows deformed and disfigured salmon at two salmon farms on the B.C. coast — just as British Columbia reels from news of the escape of up to 305,000 Atlantic farmed salmon from a Washington salmon pen. Wild salmon advocate and fisheries biologist Alexandra Morton said she was shocked by the footage. “I was shocked and frankly disgusted,” Morton told DeSmog Canada. “These fish have open sores, sea lice, blisters all over their skin and a disturbing number of them are going blind.” Morton said the footage also gives an indication of what is now travelling through Pacific waters after the escape of potentially hundreds of thousands of farmed Atlantic salmon in the San Juan Islands just east of Victoria. Atlantic salmon are considered invasive in Pacific waters.

One wild salmon advocate fears the non-native Atlantic salmon could spread sickness and compete for habitat with struggling wild salmon population.

There were 305,000, 10 lb Atlantic salmon when the pen at the fish farm in the San Juan Islands burst open on Saturday.

B.C salmon farms last year were besieged by sea lice, according to a new University of Toronto study, which also found a dangerously steep rise of infestation among young wild salmon who swam nearby.