© Matthew Ryan Williams/NYTSean O'Donnell worked on the nets in Seattle after salmon fishing Wednesday.
Seattle - The scientist in Canada got the results from a respected lab and held a news conference. The ice and bait man at a fish processor in Sitka, Alaska, heard the news on Facebook. Vardon Tremain read it in the newspaper while working on his trolling boat docked here in Salmon Bay.
More scientists in Washington started talking, and 24 hours later everyone is asking more questions. As word spread that infectious salmon anemia, a deadly virus that has devastated farmed fish in Chile, had been found for the first time in prized wild Pacific salmon, there remained much uncertainty about the finding and what its potential impact could be.
So far it has been found in just two wild sockeye salmon in British Columbia and not in an active state. Nevertheless the reaction from fishermen has echoed that of some scientists: this is the last thing salmon need.
"On top of everything else, that would just be murder here," said Mr. Tremain, aboard his 40-foot boat, Heidi, at Fishermen's Terminal here.
