Activist breaks into Scottish salmon farm
A SCOTTISH salmon farmer has been targeted by an activist who broke into a farm site without permission to take underwater photographs.
The Scottish Salmon Company said it was approached by the Scottish SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) at the end of August with pictures taken by an unnamed photographer, allegedly at one of its sea sites in the Hebrides.
The company’s CEO, Craig Anderson, said there was no evidence that the photographs – apparently shot by a scuba diver equipped with a waterproof GoPro camera – were at a SSC farm, but they welcomed the SPCA to inspect the facilities for themselves.
The organisation did so and the company – which is Friends of the Sea certified and was the first UK salmon producer to be Global GAP certified – said it received a clean bill of health from the SPCA.
But Anderson is concerned about the recklessness of the invasion: ‘It’s a breach of health and safety, and it’s a breach of biosecurity.
‘When people are so angry that they want to put their own lives at risk and put our fish and the biosecurity of our fish at risk, it’s a serious matter. It’s unprofessional, it’s possibly illegal and we’ll look into it further.’
He thinks there have been other cases of this happening in Scotland.
‘We’re not allowed to know information, funnily enough – we have to give information but when we ask a question we get no answers.’
Scottish SPCA chief superintendent Mike Flynn said:‘We can confirm we were alerted to a salmon farm on the Isle of Lewis and our enquiries are currently ongoing.’
In a separate incident, an anti-salmon farming activist attached a GoPro camera to the nets of a site in Mull, believed to belong to Scottish Sea Farms.
The activist was overheard on the ferry by a salmon farm supplier, who recognsied him, saying ‘mission accomplished’.
Drones have been reported flying close to or above sites at Marine Harvest in recent weeks, capturing images. The pictures, believed to have been taken at Marine Harvest’s Loch Leven farm, were published on the Facebook site of another anti-salmon farming campaigner.
Gideon Pringle, operations director of farming at Marine Harvest Scotland, asked to comment on a film of apparently unhealthy salmon belonging to another producer, wrote: ‘I would be reluctant to comment on this video, as the image of the few individual fish targeted does not accurately represent the situation occurring in the Scottish salmon farming industry, or at any of our farms.
‘We have available a suite of very successful management tools to manage sea lice levels, and our latest levels, at the warmest part of the year, show no farms nearing the threshold levels that require notification to Marine Scotland.’
Activists in Canada have made a habit of invading farm sites and harassing staff – Marine Harvest recently won a court injunction against campaigners to protect the welfare of its fish and employees in British Columbia – but in Scotland, protests have mostly been law abiding.