Expired Cans of Salmon From Decades Ago Contained a Big Surprise

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Expired Cans of Salmon From Decades Ago Contained a Big Surprise

NATURE
14 March 2025
By JESS COCKERILL


An anisakid worm (circled in red) in a canned salmon fillet. (Natalie Mastick/University of Washington)

Canned salmon are the unlikely heroes of an accidental back-of-the-pantry natural history museum, with decades of Alaskan marine ecology preserved in brine and tin.

Parasites can tell us a lot about an ecosystem, because they're usually up in the business of several species. But unless they cause some major problem to humans, historically we haven't paid them much attention.

That's a problem for parasite ecologists, like Natalie Mastick and Chelsea Wood from the University of Washington, who had been searching for a way to retroactively track the effects parasites had on Pacific Northwestern marine mammals.

So when Wood got a call from Seattle's Seafood Products Association, asking if she'd be interested in taking boxes of dusty old expired cans of salmon – dating back to the 1970s – off their hands, her answer was, unequivocally, yes.

{snip}

[Faux pas]

1. Very interesting

thank you 😊

[LeftInTX]

2. Ick!