Mowi’s Northern Harvest Sea Farms has reported and confirmed the presence of infectious salmon anemia (ISA) at its Ironskull Point salmon-farming site off the south coast of Newfoundland, Canada.
The company first reported the positive test on 9 October, and subsequent testing identified two fish in one cage at the site confirmed positive for ISA. All fish that were in the cage with the infected site – 225,000 in total – will be harvested, according to a Northern Harvest press release posted on the Newfoundland Aquaculture Industry Association website.
“NHSF is carrying out the fish removal using approved biosecure standard operating procedures, and all responsible actions in its response are being taken under the oversight of the Newfoundland and Labrador Department of Fisheries, Forestry, and Agriculture,” the company said.
Tests of fish in two other cages at the Ironskull site, together containing approximately 500,000 salmon, have shown no traces of ISA, according to the company.
Newfoundland has been hit hard this year by ISA, with Northern Harvest farms experiencing several bouts with ISA in recent years, including an outbreak in August 2020 at its Cinq Island Cove marine site, requiring it to harvest roughly 200,000 salmon that had been exposed to the virus, and a separate outbreak at its hatchery in Stephenville in April 2020 that forced it to cull 450,000 juvenile Atlantic salmon. It also suffered a mass die-off of around 2.6 million salmon in Newfoundland in October 2019 due to high water temperatures.
Mowi rival Cooke Inc. has also experienced losses in Newfoundland due to ISA, with an outbreak at its Grip Cove marine site in September resulting in a forced cull of 485,000 salmon in seven cages, and ISA at its Hood Cove and Seal Cove sites forcing to harvest hundreds of thousands of salmon due to potential exposure to the virus.
Mowi Canada East Director of Communications Jason Card told SeafoodSource the positive ISA tests were an unfortunate but inescapable reality of rearing salmon in ocean-based net-pens.
“All farmers engaged in raising animals for food production, be it beef, poultry, or seafood, will face biological and environmental challenges, and we have to take that reality as an understood risk upfront,” he said. “What is important is to act responsibly and quickly in the face of such challenges, and be transparent about how we address them. For our part, we have reported publicly when ISA detections have occurred, and we acted quickly and responsibly to remove affected fish from site, which is in keeping with global best practice.”
Photo courtesy of Newfoundland Aquaculture Industry Association
