The Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries is investigating a potentially large salmon escape from Arctic Offshore Farming at its Fellesholmen site in Troms. The SalMar Aker Ocean-owned project is one of a number of new sea farming concepts designed to operate in deep water, away from coastal fjords.
According to the Directorate, the company reported a 10-meter hole in one of its net pens at the site in late November. At that point the Directorate announced that it had started an investigation and asked the public to report farmed salmon catchings or sightings.
“The Directorate of Fisheries has conducted an inspection at the site," Directorate Senior Communications Advisor Nadia Jdaini told SeafoodSource. "A meeting has also been held between the Directorate of Fisheries and Arctic Offshore Farming AS.”
"The Directorate of Fisheries has requested and received a significant amount of documentation," she added. "There is a considerable amount of documentation to be reviewed and assessed in relation to the cause of the incident. An inspection report will be prepared once all relevant documentation has been reviewed.”
The Directorate had no further comment on the cause of the incident, but said that it had instructed the company to aid in the investigatory process by conducting a fish count by the end of January 2025.
One reason Norwegian salmon firms have lately pivoted to deeper sea offshore fish farms is to combat sea lice infestations, which have ravaged Norwegian aquaculture in recent years. Sea lice live at the surface of the water, and the offshore farms’ submersible net systems keep fish in deeper, safer water. Many offshore farms are capable of remote operation, and their net pens hold much higher numbers of fish than those on fjord farms, which means that any escape is likely to be large.