Threat to wild salmon after storm frees 74,000 farmed fish

WILD salmon stocks face an ecological ‘disaster’ after 74,000 farmed fish escaped during Storm Brendan, campaigners say.

The salmon broke free from a fish farm off the Hebridean island of Colonsay as the storm raged across the area last week.

Norwegian fish farming giant Mowi said a cage was damaged in the high winds and the fish swam out through torn netting.

It is the third major escape from Mowi’s new generation of high-capacity offshore sites in Scotland in just over a year, with 48,000 salmon previously lost from the firm’s Hellisay farm in Barra.

Such incidents have an economic impact on fish farming firms. Conservationists and angling groups also fear that breeding between farmed

‘Genetically polluted’

and wild salmon harms wild fish stocks.

Scottish Salmon Watch director Don Staniford said: ‘Moving salmon farms further offshore is a recipe for ecological and welfare disaster. Scientific research published in 2013 showed that one in four “wild” Scottish salmon was genetically polluted with genes from Norwegianorigin escaped salmon.

‘The Scottish Government needs to close the net on escapes and that means fines to deter repeat offenders.’

He said an estimated four million farmed salmon have escaped since 1995.

David MacGillivray, Mowi’s regional farm manager, said: ‘We are very disappointed that this structural failure has occurred.’

The firm said its pens exceeded Scottish and Norwegian technical standards and it expected them to withstand the storm.