Mowi Canada East announced it has detected infections salmon anemia (ISA) in its Stephenville, Newfoundland and Labrador-based hatchery during routine testing.
The company said the discovery has forced it to make plans to euthanize the affected salmon in the hatchery.
Following the discovery of ISA, the company said it immediately placed the salmon in quarantine. All told, 2.26 million salmon at the parr stage, weighing 104 grams on average, will need to be culled using standard operating procedures, it said.
“All Canadian farmers will understand the despair felt when animals under your care succumb to health challenges – it is disappointing to all those involved, especially our dedicated teams in Stephenville,” Mowi Canada East Managing Director Alan Cook said. “We have assembled a team of international Mowi experts to assist us in investigating this situation and developing plans for preventing a repeat in future groups.”
This is not the first time that ISA has been discovered at the company’s Stephenville hatchery. In 2020, the company was forced to cull 450,000 juvenile salmon after an ISA outbreak there.
The new discovery is the latest in a string of setbacks for Mowi Canada East’s operations in Newfoundland. Earlier this year the company confirmed an ISA detection at its Friar Cove marine site, located off the south coast of Newfoundland. The detection occurred in two cages, which contained approximately 165,000 fish at an average weight of one kilogram each.
In September 2021, the company lost 489,000 salmon at “The Gorge,” a facility in Newfoundland, and in its Q4 earning report the company reported it lost more than 1.7 million fish in Eastern Canada in 2021 – including 570,238 salmon from its Deep Water Point site and 184,598 salmon at the Little Burdock Cove site. The company also lost more than 210,000 salmon at its Little Bay, Chaleur Bay, and Friar Cove farming sites.
In 2020, the company reported ISA detection during the summer at its Cinq Island Cove marine site in Newfoundland. A cage containing 200,000 Atlantic salmon had a sample test positive in a site containing a total of 600,000 salmon.
The company started operations in the region following the acquisition of Northern Harvest in 2018, and since that time has had a “string of unfortunate biological incidents,” Mowi CEO Ivan Vindheim said during the company’s Q3 2021 results. The incidents caused the company to delay planned salmon-farm expansions in the region.
Mortalities due to ISA in the region aren’t unique to Mowi. In 2021, Grieg Seafood Newfoundland announced it was delaying plans to stock facilities in Marystown, Newfoundland after a suspected positive test for ISA in a single fish. The positive test led the company to cull almost one million fish that were scheduled for sea transfer in summer 2021.
Cooke Aquaculture also faced issues with ISA in 2020, starting with its Hood Cove and Seal Cove salmon sites in Newfoundland operated by Cold Ocean Salmon – resulting in the removal of 234,000 salmon. Later that year, the company detected ISA at its Grip Cove marine cage site in Gaultois, Newfoundland, resulting in the removal of 485,000 salmon.
Photo courtesy of Mowi Canada East
