Comment Dr Martin Jaffa

Turning a blind eye to animal cruelty in the name of sport

ANYONE who is willing to stand up and defend the salmon farming industry and put their head above the parapet must be prepared to receive abuse and criticism, especially on social media.

Recently, I suggested that the mortality suffered by the industry was no different to that experienced by sheep farmers in Scotland. Anti-salmon farming campaigner Corin Smith responded on Twitter, claiming my ignorance of such matters.

The reality is that, over the last year, the total number of fish that died as a percentage of all the fish in production was no different to the total number of sheep that died as a percentage of the total stock.

In both cases, the percentage mortality was around eight to nine per cent. However, for some critics, this level of mortality is not a figure that they want others to hear.

Instead, they hope the public believes that farmed salmon die in such high numbers that farmed salmon will be considered unacceptable as a modern day food.

I only mention Smith by name because besides being active on social media as a self-proclaimed fish farm expert, he is also media consultant for Salmon & Trout Conservation.

Last December, S&TC jointly produced a report with OneKind Scotland, entitled ‘Responsibly Sourced?’

The report identified farms named on packs of salmon bought from supermarkets and then highlighted the related mortality levels and lice counts in an attempt to persuade shoppers that this salmon comes at an unacceptable cost.

The report raises a couple of issues that merit a further look. While it highlights selected farms that did experience unusually high mortality due to a combination of unforeseen factors, they are not representative of the whole industry.

The report includes a graph showing overall farm mortality levels, based on total tonnage rather than numbers, as I used.

The most recent figure quoted is just eleven per cent, not far from the nine per cent I quoted but a long way from the 25 per cent mortality level that Smith suggests is typical throughout the industry.

The second, and more interesting, issue is the collaboration between S&TC and OneKind. OneKind’s logo states ‘Ending Cruelty to Scotland’s Animals’.

Yet by forming this association, it could be assumed that OneKind has turned a blind eye to one of Scotland’s cruellest sports – salmon angling.

Before I am accused of any bias, I refer to comments made by Smith when interviewed recently on a podcast, posted by the Pace Brothers, in which he clearly stated more than once that salmon angling is inherently cruel.

When the OneKind report was first published, a colleague of mine contacted the organisation to draw attention to this inconsistency. He was told that OneKind had been ‘assured’ by S&TC that they were no longer connected to angling.

This is news to me. I know S&TC had changed their name in a cynical ploy to make out that they are a conservation organisation, but as far as I am aware their interest in conservation is to conserve wild salmon so their members can catch and kill more of them.

There is plenty of evidence that they remain committed to angling, not least becasue they auction angling trips as a way of raising funds.

My colleague replied to OneKind, highlighting the way S&TC raises funds, but has heard nothing back.

I too contacted OneKind for clarification, but also heard nothing so

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It is only recently that they have raised concerns about salmon farming, no doubt prompted by other cs” criti

eventually rang the press office, only to be put through to OneKind director, Bob Elliot.

I said that I was planning to write about their relationship with S&TC and asked if he could clarify this. He said he would send me a couple of lines to state their position, but I’m still waiting.

OneKind are not unique in adopting an anti-salmon farm policy while being unwilling to discuss their worries with the industry.

OneKind has been in existence for many years but it is only recently that they have raised concerns about salmon farming, no doubt prompted by the activities of other critics.

The OneKind report about the salmon farming industry was written by a new graduate in her first job. She relied on the usual critics to provide information but made no attempt to speak to anyone from the industry or to visit a farm and see the industry for herself.

I wait to see OneKind produce a similar report on the inherent cruelty of salmon angling, and especially the cruel way that fish are caught and released now that anglers have realised that killing more than 5.9 million fish for sport has decimated wild stocks.

While 2019 was not the best year for low mortality on salmon farms, in part due to an unfortunate series of circumstances and the introduction of new technology to combat sea lice, the focus on mortality by anti-salmon farming campaigners was not a coincidence.

I recently spoke to someone from the angling sector who told me that their past campaigns to persuade the public that salmon farming needed to be controlled in order to protect wild salmon (so anglers could catch and kill them for sport) failed to gain any sympathy and thus were judged to be unsuccessful.

The wild sector decided they needed to change the narrative. Rather than talk about the conservation of wild fish, the sector began to focus on one aspect of salmon farming – mortality levels- and obtain as much negative coverage in the media as possible.

I would congratulate them for their campaign as I believe it has been extremely successful. Mortality as an issue has been a regular feature in the wider press throughout the past year.

Fortunately, the public have been just as indifferent to this aspect of farming as they have to the plight of wild fish.

This does not mean that the industry should not defend its record and be fully open as to why fish do die when it happens, as well as addressing why the fish died as a matter of urgency.

However, the real puzzle for me is why the wild fish sector continues to focus on salmon farming at all.

Even if farms do have an impact on wild fish, and I have yet to be convinced, it is on less than 10 per cent of the total Scottish catch.

While they focus on mortality on salmon farms, wild fish mortality at sea is now approaching 98 per cent and yet there appears to be barely s shred of interest in finding out why.

Marine mortality is dismissed as something over which they can have no influence so instead they focus on issues which they might be able to control.

This is why they continue to argue that salmon farming should be moved to closed containment on land.

This of course is never going to happen, but even if it did, it would not reverse the trend of ever fewer numbers of salmon returning to Scottish rivers.