(NAPSA)—TIfall goes well for Pacific salmon, they begin and end their lives in shallow rivers seas.” Some sockeye salmon populations, for example, can cycle from highs of nearly fifty million to and streams. First, however, these migratory fish must travel two to three years on the high seas—a time of potential peril due to environmental hazards, global climate lows under a million, Dr. Seeb change, rogue commercial fisher- men whoillegally use drift nets or “curtains of death” to catch the high-priced wild salmon and intermixing with less desirable farmed stocks. Based on a multinational treaty banning fishing of Pacific salmon off the waters surrounding Canada, Japan, Korea, the Russian Federation and the United States, coast guards from member nations have been charged with patrolling the waters and intercepting fishing vessels suspected of catching banned salmon. Large populations of Pacific salmon in certain regions nevertheless continue to be over fished and endangered. Fishery managers across the Pacific Ocean are now turning to the latest DNA technologies to maintain robust populations of Pacific salmon and even save some from nature and rogue fishermen. These fishery managers use DNAto determineif a fisherman’s catch includes banned stocks, track current numbers of Pacific salmon species and trace their migration patterns. The DNA sequence provides a type of “fingerprint” in identifying specific salmon stocks. A small piece of salmonfin gives scientists a DNA sample they can use to sh ‘
