Actor Shatner trying to protect salmon

VICTORIA, British Columbia, July 31 (UPI) -- Canadian actor William Shatner says salmon farms located off British Columbia's Vancouver Island are devastating the wild salmon population.

The former "Boston Legal" star has contacted Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper regarding the farms located on wild salmon migration routes, seeking their removal to protect the fish population, the Canwest News Service said Friday.

"There is one thing you could do tomorrow that would benefit the wild stocks enormously and all your citizens who depend on this fish -- remove salmon farms from wild salmon and steelhead migration routes and encourage the industry to reinvent itself on land where other, more sustainable species could be trialed," Shatner said in a letter to Harper.

Fisheries Minister Gail Shea, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff and British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell also received the letter.

Biologist Alexandra Morton, who has been fighting to protect the wild salmon population off Vancouver Island, told Canwest she suggested to Shatner a letter to the prime minister could prove beneficial to their fight.