Hey fish biologist - My salmon had a tumor!

[David]

Here's one for you, Nelly. We fished Mukilteo to Edmonds today and boated a couple. When I brought mine home to clean it, I found this. The kidney was completely involved with tumors. At the large end, it had even moved thru the rib wall and into the muscle. Never seen anything like it before. Pretty nasty, actually. I was surprised that the fish was even alive, and seemingly healthy.

Tumor 1.JPG (175.44 KiB) Viewed 6697 times

[Salmonhawk]

Mmmm...good eats

[Nelly]

All I can say is that it happens but its very uncommon.
Parasites can infest a salmon but what you have shown us there looks like BKD or bacterial kidney disease.
I will run these pics by a Doctor/friend of mine and report back with his diagnoses!

[t_dub]

you mean that fish has a Urinary Tract Infection???? Blaaah!

[Smalma]

Nelly -
Will be interested in what you Doc friend has to say.

Wonder if it might be a severe case of calcium deposits in the kidney?

Tight lines
Curt

[Brandon]

Id just smoke that one. Nobody will ever know

[Dr Plugbuster]

As far as a diagnosis: most likely a renal cell carcinoma or a nephroblastoma. Both can be eventually fatal, but less so than consuming hoochies. The white goo is either infection or dead tissue caused by a lack of blood supply as the cellular mass became too large to support.

My guess is the patient hatched in the Snohomish and spent most of it's frydom in an area with a significant exposure to heavy metals. Mind you these are not from the farms, but from inappropriately discarded cell phone contamination of the river by careless anglers.

Call the show some Saturday morning for clarification.

[Nelly]

Damn!
What Dr. Plugbuster is refering to is me dropping my cell phone in the Snohomish when I was guiding him and his son.
I was making a "business call" with the phone jammed between my ear and shoulder when a fish hit and.... you guessed it...splash..

So, if that lost cell phone and the battery/heavy metal contamination caused that "coho cancer"... I sincerely apologize..

By the way, the good doctor got the name "Plugbuster" by his attempt to bonk a king flopping on the deck... He missed and his nickname was born

[Robbo]

I saw Nelly eating something similar to that on a bagel in the studio one morning. Looked like some kind of snot-rocket