Chile’s environmental watchdog SMA has solicited information from Trusal S.A., whose Ensenada Lorca fattening center is operated by Cermaq Chile, due to the activation of a contingency plan for fish escapes in the Magallanes region.
The species involved were rainbow trout, not salmon as reported by SMA, a Cermaq Chile spokesperson confirmed to SeafoodSource. On 11 March, the company reported to SMA that workers found a “significant difference” in the fish stock of cage 107, which was being harvested at the time. Some 50,000 fish, each weighing about 3.3 kilograms, had escaped from Trusal’s center at the Seno Skyring area, in the community of Río Verde.
The spokesperson also confirmed the parties involved have implemented contingency plans and are in the process of recapture. Exact numbers of the recapture have not been released.
SMA is requiring Trusal to provide further information - including the amount of biomass at the plant prior to the event, as well as if the trout had been treated with antibiotics and the preliminary causes of occurrence – in order to assess possible infractions to the applicable environmental instruments.
Trusal had reported to Sernapesca, Chile's national fishing authority, that adverse climate conditions had caused a rupture in cage 107.
The latest event adds to a growing list of troubles for Cermaq’s Chilean operations. In January, following the detection of ISA virus, Cermaq decided to harvest all of the 561,000 salmon found in its Ensenada RyS seawater site, also located in southern Chile’s Magallanes Region. The virus was found during a routine sampling at one of its pens in November, and as a result, all of the salmon in that pen was harvested. In December, new tests were carried out that came up as showing another three pens affected by ISA.
And in December 2019, Cermac Chile reported the escape of some 23,000 coho salmon from a pen at its Caucahue facility.
Oslo, Norway-headquartered Cermaq is a fully-owned subsidiary of the Mitsubishi Corporation.
Photo courtesy of Superintendencia del Medio Ambiente/Gobierno de Chile
