Escaped Atlantic salmon caught in drift-net on Skagit River

SEDRO WOOLLEY, Wash.  — Washington state officials say an Atlantic salmon that escaped from a collapsed net pen at Cypress Island has been captured in a drift net 40 miles up the Skagit River.

Fish veterinarian Jed Varney of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife tells The Seattle Times in a story on Friday that the 3-foot fish was thin but looked good with no significant bacteria or parasites.

Varney says he found several vertebrae of an unidentified small fish in the Atlantic salmon's stomach.

A member of the Upper Skagit Indian Tribe caught the fish Tuesday while drift-net fishing for hatchery chinook.

The Atlantic salmon and about 300,000 others escaped from Cooke Aquaculture's net-pen farm in August when one of its pens collapsed.