Spotlight on gill health

Technical topics targeted at helping farmers

Aone-day workshop focusing on gill health discussed the latest strategies to deal with this major challenge, with farmers and scientists from Scotland, Ireland and Norway attending. Around 85 people gathered at the event, organised by the cottish al on rod cers rganisation and held for the benefit of its members, in Inverness last month.

Attendees were able to share their experiences and expertise in, among other things, freshwater treatment, plankton, functional feeds and bio-fouling.

Delegates included representatives from producers, equipment manufacturers, feed companies, pharmaceutical groups, as well as vets and researchers.

Dr Iain Berrill, the SSPO’s research and data manager, said the technical workshop followed on fro a recent cleaner fish event, and was g ided by the industry and targeted at helping people on the ground.

‘There is a lot of really important work going on out there to manage and enhance gill health and we are keen to promote this, while helping to generate discussion between industry representatives through knowledge exchange.

‘Each topic was followed by a questions and answers session to stimulate discussion across the group, which may even lead to potential new research opportunities that could bring significant benefits to the cottish ind stry in the long term.’

The initial focus of the workshop was on monitoring, with Hamish Rodger of the Fish Vet Group giving a presentation with what he called his ‘ten things you should do to monitor and help manage gill health’.

This was followed by a talk from Mona Gjessing from the Norwegian Veterinary Institute, who discussed her ongoing investigations into salmon gill virus.