Concern after farm salmon escape

THOUSANDS of salmon worth about £240,000 have escaped from an Argyll fish farm, raising fears they will breed with wild fishing stocks.

The 16,000 fish, weighing an average of 10lb each, escaped from the Marine Harvest farm at Carradale.

The fish escaped through a hole in the net following stormy seas and winds of up to 70mph in the early hours of June 2. The company estimates the escape has cost £240,000.

It was the biggest escape from a Scottish mainland marine salmon farm since 2009 at Strone Point in Argyll when nearly 59,000 fish escaped from a farm operated by Lighthouse Caledonia.

The Salmon and Trout Association (Scotland) has said the fish are mature therefore they will migrate into important salmon rivers in the Firth of Clyde, genetically diluting wild stocks.

But Marine Harvest maintains the fish were not mature, and therefore will not try to migrate into local rivers, but will swim out to sea. It said it farms with special slow-maturing stocks.

It is thought the 16,000 escaped fish may exceed the number of wild adult salmon running in the rivers flowing into the Firth of Clyde. The pen had been stocked with 24,000 fish and the weather was particularly bad. Nets had been checked that day.

Allan Sutherland, managing director of Marine Harvest (Scotland) Ltd, said: “Our aim as a company is to prevent fish escape all together and we very much regret this incident.”