Anti-salmon farming groups and media outlets in the U.K. have recently decried the number of fish mortalities recorded on fish farms in Scotland, but the country's aquaculture industry is defending its practices.
The Scottish Parliament's Rural Affairs and Islands Committee has been conducting an inquiry into how Scotland’s salmon farming has changed since a 2018 report raised a number of environmental concerns.
Cooke Scotland Seawater Manager David Brown told the committee recently the country's fish-farming operations are prioritizing animal welfare.
“We do not want dead fish on our sites at all. We do not seek to have mortalities. We want to give the best care we can to our fish at all times. That goes for absolutely everybody. Nobody wants to go in the morning to take dead fish out of a cage. It's not good for the companies, it’s not good for staff, it's simply not a nice job, and we'd much rather not do it,” Brown said. “An awful lot is said about reacting to dead fish. We don't want these fish to die in the first place; we'd rather get them better before that ever happens. That's what we seek to do.”
Brown said Cooke’s internal monitoring program includes weekly physical samplings in cages on every site, and this gives the company an effective overview of gill health. The firm also employs constant monitoring of sea lice numbers and feeding behaviors, among other health metrics.
Giving a broader view of the industry’s fish welfare focus, Bakkafrost Scotland Head of Health Kimberley McKinnell said fundamental changes have been made to practices over the past five years, moving the industry more into proactive and preventative means of looking after fish, rather than solely taking reactive measures.
“This is a complete change in how we manage the health of our animals,” she said. “We're using more novel technologies for monitoring the fish.”
McKinnell said the industry is being more proactive to ensure mortalities don't occur by implementing blood biomarkers, which can indicate if fish are suffering from liver or gill damage.
“We have a really good view of the health of the fish well in advance of these handling events,” she said.
Additionally, the latest generation of wellboats have pipes and pumps that take fish onboard to the holding wells in a way the maximizes their well-being, McKinnell said.
“These really are a game-changer in terms of health and welfare," McKinnell said. "They’re managing two different parasite issues at the same time, which is a long distance away from where we were five years ago."
Regarding biological challenges that have plagued Scotland over the past few years, such as micro-jellyfish, McKinnell said Bakkafrost “hasn’t sat on its hands” but has tried to identify solutions to improve the health and welfare of fish, with “bubble curtains” showing a lot of promise in keeping jellyfish and harmful algal blooms out of cages.
“We're fully aware that the environment changes, but farmers are very skilled and knowledgeable. I think if you go to a farm and ask [farmers] about plankton, for example, you'd be surprised how much information they could give you on it,” she said.
Wester Ross Salmon Head of Farming Operations Constance Pattillo emphasized the passion for welfare and skill that farmers take to work every day.
“They're looking at [the salmon], whether it's through cameras or through visual inspections, and every week, they’re taking small samples from these pens and assessing them visually, looking at lice counts, looking at gill health, and looking at physical conditions,” she said. “These are very well-trained, skilled farmers out in these rural communities who take this very seriously.”
Mowi Chief Operating Officer for Farming Scotland, Ireland, Faroes, and Atlantic Canada Ben Hadfield told the committee it’s important the Scottish salmon industry does not grow complacent and continues to rise to the challenges it faces, striving to produce the healthiest food it can.
“Not doing that would be akin to a journey of importing energy, which we just shouldn't do. We have to manage our way through these challenges,” he said. “We are winning against higher [water] temperatures. In June this year, compared with June last year, the temperature on the west coast was three degrees higher. That has an enormous difference, and it creates a real challenge for fish health in terms of gill disease and jellyfish. We are broadly staying the same size, with the same number of smolts going to sea every year, and we're investing enormously to make our way through these challenges.”
