Tire dust killing coho salmon returning to Puget Sound, new research shows – The Seattle Times

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“Tire dust killing coho salmon returning to Puget Sound, new research shows” – The Seattle Times

“A team led by researchers at the University of Washington Tacoma, UW and Washington State University Puyallup have discovered a chemical that kills coho salmon in urban streams before the fish can spawn. (Kiyomi Taguchi/University of Washington)

By Lynda V. Mapes
Seattle Times environment reporter

First they circle. Then they gasp at the surface of the water. Soon they can’t swim. Then they die.

For decades now, scientists have known something was killing beautiful, adult coho salmon as soon as they hit Seattle’s urban waters, ready to spawn. They had escaped the orcas, the fishermen, traveled thousands of miles, only to be mysteriously killed as soon as they finally reached home.

In a breakthrough paper published in the Dec. 3 issue of Science, a team of researchers revealed the culprit behind the deaths of coho in an estimated 40% of the Puget Sound area — a killer so lethal it takes out 40 to 90% of returning coho to some urban streams before they spawn. It is a killer hidden in plain sight.”