Salmo salar

Fishes

Atlantic salmon, Black Salmon, Penobscot Salmon, saumon atlantique, Schoodic Salmon, Sea Salmon, Sebago Salmon;

Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar) are large, anadromous fishes native to the North Atlantic, with spawning populations in rivers from northern Norway to the Spain-Portugal boundary, and from Labrador to the Connecticut River. This salmon is highly prized as a sportfish and food-fish, and has suffered from over-fishing, pollution, and dam-building. Land-locked populations occur in some lakes, including Lake Ontario (now extripated). Sea-running juveniles adults and adults range widely over the North Atlantic. The United States Fish Commission (USFC) reared millions of anadromous and land-locked Salmo salar (which the USFC called 'Penobscot Salmon') at a hatchery in ME and shipped them to 24 states. These massive stockings were unsuccessful. Landlocked S. salar ('Schoodic' or 'Sebago' Salmon) are still widely stocked in deep cold lakes, but seldom successfully. Outside their native range they were stocked in at least 12 countries in Europe, Asia, South America, Australia, and New Zealand but most of these stockings have been unsuccessful. However, increasing use of this species in aquaculture has led to many escapes in British Columbia, and many occurrences in Alaska commercial fisheries. Spawning by Salmo salar has been seen in British Columbia, but this fish is not known to have established populations.