The Scottish Salmon and Trout Association (S&TA) has called on the government and Scottish Salmon Producers Organization (SSPO) to take action over “out of control” sea lice.
The call comes after S&TA analyzed data from SSPO on the problem.
According to S&TA, in June 2013 on more than one-third of salmon farms on the Scottish mainland and in the Hebrides in areas where average sea lice numbers exceeded the industry’s own limit for sea lice. In each of the previous five months at least one quarter were in this category.
S&TA highlighted three key fish-farming areas, where the SSPO’s ‘average data’ showed sea lice numbers in excess of the industry’s own limits for sea lice for every month from January to June 2013. The areas include farms operated by Loch Duart, Wester Ross Fisheries, Scottish Sea Farms, The Scottish Salmon Company and Marine Harvest Scotland.
“The SSPO reports confirm that, in at least three key fish farming regions of Scotland, sea lice numbers are out of control and consequently the fish-farm companies are failing to protect wild fish from the devastating effects of the release of vast numbers of juvenile parasitic sea lice into west coast sea lochs,” said Hugh Campbell Adamson, S&TA chairman.
“We have a simple question for the SSPO. Why have companies such as Wester Ross Fisheries and Loch Duart not been expelled from SSPO membership when they fail so consistently and dramatically to keep sea lice numbers within the limits they have signed up to? If the SSPO’s Code of Good Practice on sea lice is to retain any credibility, then surely serial offenders like Wester Ross Fisheries and Loch Duart should be excluded from the salmon farmers’ trade organization.”
According to S&TA, the negative impact of sea lice, produced in huge numbers by fish farms, on wild salmonids, is widely accepted by fisheries scientists including the Scottish government’s own Marine Scotland Science.
“In light of the appalling sea-lice numbers that companies such as Wester Ross Fisheries Limited and Loch Duart Limited have been reporting, we would ask Paul Wheelhouse MSP, Minister for the Environment in the Scottish Government, what he intends to do about this,” said Guy Linley-Adams, solicitor to the S&TA’s aquaculture campaign.
“Specifically, when is the minister going to introduce statutory controls on on-farm sea lice numbers to protect juvenile wild fish from picking up lethal infestations in the sea-lochs?”
