Officials said the eclipse brought on high tides around Cypress Island, off Washington state – and that’s why thousands of farmed Atlantic salmon managed to free themselves from their floating net pens in Puget Sound. Tribal fishers, concerned about native salmon populations, call the accident “a devastation.” 
 
 It’s open season on Atlantic salmon as the public is urged to help mop up a salmon spill from a damaged net pen holding 305,000 fish at a Cooke Aquaculture fish farm near Cypress Island. Lummi fishers out for chinook on Sunday near Samish, south of Bellingham Bay, were shocked to pull up the spotted, silvery-sided Atlantic salmon — escapees that turned up in their nets again Monday. “[Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife] has encouraged recreational harvesters to catch as many as they can, but what does that mean to the other species? The fish are about 10 pounds each. Ron Warren, fish program assistant director for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, said the net had some 3 million pounds of fish in it when it imploded Saturday, and the department says Cooke Aquaculture estimates between 4,000 and 5,000 fish got out and is working to repair their nets. The Wild Fish Conservancy doesn't agree, because “the external cost of operating in the water is not just on the Atlantic Salmon it's on the natural environment, as well.” 
 
 The department has been monitoring the situation and crafting a spill-response plan with Cooke. Anchor lines to the pens broke Saturday afternoon, and walkways for servicing the pens tipped, making it unsafe for employees even to get in the water and assess the scope of the spill, Warren said. “Our understanding is with the solar eclipse came some pretty severe tidal exchanges, and within the San Juan Islands themselves, those currents are pretty strong at times,” Ron Warren, the department’s assistant director, told KUOW’s The Record. “Our focus is on the safety of our people, securing the farm facilities, and protecting the environment we work within,” Cooke Aquaculture said in a statement. But the environmental group Wild Fish Conservancy has been protesting these farms for some time and said it's not buying the company's explanation. BELLINGHAM, Wash. - Did Monday's eclipse play a role in a huge Atlantic salmon spill from a fish farm in the San Juans? Cooke said high tides mixed with strong currents of "up to 3.5-knot currents" impacted the incident. Saturday was a calm day as well: Winds in nearby Anacortes never exceeded 6 miles an hour that day, according to the National Weather Service. People can believe it or not.” 
 
 The fish were soon due to be harvested and Cooke had intended to replace equipment at the site to strengthen it, but was awaiting permits, she added. Salmon farming amid the region’s thriving wild salmon fisheries has been fraught with controversy, with concerns that Atlantic salmon could escape and cause harm to native runs. And, over the years, he says, they have not been able to interbreed with Northwest native species or successfully establish themselves in the wild over multiple generations. “Those fish that escape are much more likely to be prey than they are to be predator,” he said. “Farmed Atlantic that have been domesticated would be like a dairy cow competing with a gazelle on the Serengeti, it's just not going to be significant.” 
 
 Rust says he believes people need to give more consideration to farm-raised fish and says the U.S. doesn’t utilize farmed fish nearly as much as some other countries. It doesn’t last very long.” 
 
 But plenty of fishers and environmentalists continue to have big concerns about salmon farming. “The Atlantic salmon bring with them pollution, virus and parasite amplification, and all that harms Pacific salmon and our waters of Washington,” Beardslee said. “It’s a devastation,” said Ellie Kinley, whose family has fished Puget Sound for generations. Mike Rust, science advisor with the Office of Aquaculture, said their research shows farm-raised fish don’t do well outside the nets. James, a member of the Lummi Natural Resources staff and fish commission, said Pacific salmon face enough trouble as it is without dueling with invaders in their home waters. “It is potentially a disease issue, and impact on our fish, as dire a shape as they are in, right now any impact to them is difficult to absorb.” 
 
 Warren, of the WDFW, also is concerned about potential impacts on wild stocks. "If they want to get these out of the water, they should be contracting with the tribal or commercial fisherman. “Their ability to compete really goes down quickly,” he said. “We have no concerns about disease at this point.” 
 
 Penalties for the escape are being evaluated, Warren said.
– In what one conservationist is calling an "environmental nightmare," an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 Atlantic salmon busted out of their holding pen over the weekend after a net broke, and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is now pleading with locals to help catch as many as they can. Cooke Aquaculture's net pen was holding around 305,000 farmed salmon when anchor lines to the pen gave way and service walkways tipped on Saturday, reports the Seattle Times. The WDFW is now asking for the public's help in scooping the escaped fish out of the waters near Cypress Island (or wherever they may turn up), with no size or quantity restrictions. The exodus has environmentalists concerned, as they're afraid the farmed escapees could take over the feeding and spawning grounds of native chinook and steelhead salmon and pass on disease, KUOW notes. Cooke says in a statement that "exceptionally high tides and currents coinciding with this week's solar eclipse" contributed to the "structural failure" that led to the salmon's breakout. But environmentalists are pushing back on that, KING 5 notes, with one organization claiming Cooke had the same net issue earlier this summer. KUOW also reports that tide tables and current and wind speed numbers weren't unusually high on Saturday. A Cooke spokeswoman doubled down on the eclipse explainer late Tuesday, and she also added that the escaped salmon weren't a threat to native fish because they wouldn't survive. "It's primarily a business loss," she tells the Times. The salmon, which weigh about 10 pounds each, "will be food for the seals and the fishermen can enjoy them." (Is California's salmon population in big trouble?)