Recapture and spread of escaped farmed Atlantic salmon depends on the life stage at escape and farm location

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To improve assessments of the environmental risks of aquaculture, we performed a series of simulated escapes of farmed Atlantic salmon from cages in seawater. From 2005 to 2010 almost 78 000 individually tagged smolts, post-smolts and adult salmon have been released from different locations at different times of the year. Smolts and postsmolts that escaped during their first summer were capable of rapid migration towards open sea. Some returned to spawn and were recaptured after 1-3 years at sea in nearby, but also in remote rivers hundred of kilometers away from the release site (Fig 1)