Salmon and trout farmer Cermaq has implemented a new fish welfare policy based on the framework and recommendations in the FishWell report.
The Mitsubishi Corporation subsidiary said that while it already reports on a broad set of fish health and welfare indicators, this will be the first step towards developing KPIs for measuring fish welfare as defined in FishWell, a manual on how to assess the welfare of farmed salmon in different production systems and husbandry practises.
“A real change-maker for monitoring fish welfare will only be seen when we move towards individualized farming. Then we can monitor and treat individual fish, not the entire stock in the pen. This is where iFarm provides a solution,” Cermaq R&D Director Olai Einen said.
iFarm, when developed, can measure the external fish health and welfare parameters presented in FishWell. Using photo recognition, it sorts and treats individual fish against challenges such as sea lice.
FishWell is a collaboration project between the Norwegian food research institute Nofima, the Institute of Marine Research (IMR), the Norwegian Veterinary Institute (NVI), Nord University in Bodø and the University of Stirling in the United Kingdom.
