Video showing dead salmon being removed before the visit by MSPsBy Democrat reporter
Government inspectors say they have no concerns over the number of dead salmon removed from a fish farm just hours before MSPs visited, according to a report on BBC Scotland.
Members of the Scottish Parliament’s rural affairs committee visited Dunstaffnage fish farm near Oban on Monday 25 September for a fact-finding mission.
Animal Equality UK accused the fish farm operator of trying to paint a “wholly inaccurate” picture of the industry but Scottish Sea Farms insisted the footage showed “routine” operations.
Members of the Fish Health Inspectorate have now told committee members , external dead fish removal is a “recognised aspect of animal husbandry”.
The committee is holding a follow-up inquiry into how the sector has changed since a damning report in 2018 raised environmental concerns.
Following the release of the footage of dead and dying fish being removed, a spokesperson for the committee said it had heard concerns about fish mortality on salmon farms during its inquiry and added that the footage raised further questions for the committee.
BBC Scotland News understands that the removal of the fish on 25 September was not discussed with MSPs.
But Scottish Sea Farms, which operates the site, insisted the footage showed teams following standard operating procedures by regularly removing dead or dying fish.
It said the number of fish removed each time would vary between pens and from day to day.
But it insisted it had “categorically not” had a mass mortality event.
The inspectorate has written to the parliament committee saying 1,082kg of biomass was removed from the site on the day the footage was taken but said the mortality levels had not been above the voluntary reporting levels.
It said: “The FHI do not have concerns with the routine mortality removal procedure being undertaken in the video footage.”
On Tuesday, Dr Ralph Bickerdike, head of fish health & welfare at Scottish Sea Farms, said: “The response by the Fish Health Inspectorate reinforces what we clearly stated to the BBC last week: that the footage shows our farm team fulfilling their duty of care by swiftly removing any poorly fish or fallen stock, something we do each morning where conditions allow.”
Abigail Penny, executive director of Animal Equality UK, said: “The public outcry upon seeing this footage speaks for itself.
“Containers full to the brim of dead animals tell a story that percentages on a page cannot. The fact this doesn’t even cause regulators to bat an eyelid is deeply troubling.
“If this is business as usual, MSPs must question whether this is an industry Scotland should continue supporting.”
Parasitic sea lice
Scottish salmon is the UK’s biggest food export, worth £578m in 2022, but the number of fish dying on farms has been increasing, with a record 17 million salmon deaths reported in Scotland last year.
Warm sea temperatures have led to a significant increase in micro-jellyfish which cause harm to farmed salmon.
There are also long-standing concerns around parasitic sea lice and the use of chemical treatments in open waters.
In 2018, Holyrood’s environment committee concluded that Scotland’s marine ecosystem faced “irrecoverable damage” from an expansion in fish farming.
A report by the regulator Sepa, in the same year, found that almost one in five salmon farms in Scotland failed to meet statutory environmental standards.
Another report, by the Scottish parliament’s rural economy committee, made 65 recommendations for improvement but stopped short of backing a moratorium on new fish farms.
The current inquiry is examining to what extent those recommendations have been implemented.
Top of page picture is of a typical salmon farm of the West Coast of Scotland. Picture by Bill Heaney
Make no mistake these fish farms are death camps.
Around 60 percent of the salmon reared in theses cages perish. The fish are doused with pesticides and antibiotics. Sea lice infestation is a huge problem and the extensive use of pesticide and antibiotics pollutes not just the sea bed under the pens but the seas around the pens. This kills shellfish.
Salmon Scotland website say they only use antibiotics under the direction of a vet when needed. The reality of course is different.
And then of course if anyone tries to raise the issue of fish deaths, animal husbandry or the impacts of chemical pollution in the environmen5 the multi billion pound industry deploys the legal strategy of SLAP which is STRATEGIC LITIGATION AGA8NST PUBLIC PARTICIPATION.
Better maybe understood as the big boys suing the arse of anybody that complains MOWI did it to a campaigner called Don Staniford whereby they got the Oban sher8ff court to issue an interdict that inhibited Mr Stanniford from making any comment in the press or media, stopped him in his right to use his canoe on the high sea and go anywhere near a fish pen, stopped him being able to fly a drone or a balloon in the skies over any area of sea with a fish pen. In breath of this interdict Mr Stanniford would have been immediately jailed, sent to prison.
Brutal, brutal stuff from a multi billion pound industry who is well skilled in political lobbying, and who recently were exposed for taking Ana’s Sarwar and Iain Murray to a cdays VIP wining and dining at the football in Liverpool when the Labour Conference was on.
Thankfully, a group of pro bone lawyers and senior counsel came to the aid of campaigner Stanniford and were able to get some of the wild inhibitions lifted. But big business stilling free speech, restricting people in their rights to move freely, threatening people with jail is pure big business intimidation well tried and tested in the USA where SLAP legal strategies were very much developed.
I would not touch farmed Scottish salmon. Chemical fed produce from overstocked disease ridden farms is not something I want to ingest. Consumers have made that clear with chlorinated chicken from the USA.
But sadly, big money talks, and it certainly seems to talk with the Scottish Salmon industry.