Stop shooting seals if you want to save US salmon exports

SALMON farms have been urged to stop shooting seals in order to protect nearly £200million a year of exports to the United States.

Rural Economy Secretary Fergus Ewing made the plea yesterday after it emerged that attempts to get an exemption from a US ban on exports of salmon from farms which shoot seals had failed.

The US is one of Scotland’s most lucrative foreign markets and exports were worth £193million last year.

But these exports are at risk because 851 seals have been shot at salmon farms in Scotland since 2011.

It is the latest challenge facing the industry, which is already facing criticism for the dangers its expansion could cause to the environment, and is dealing with a sea lice crisis.

Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday Politics Scotland programme yesterday, Mr Ewing said: ‘The position is that we wish to see every method used to scare seals away from cages and I am very pleased that technology now, including the use of sonar devices, means it is possible to do.’

He said the Scottish Government was working with the sector in order to come to a situation where ‘licences for control of seals would no longer be necessary’.

Asked if he would ban shooting of seals in order to protect exports, he said: ‘We are doing everything possible we can to ensure the best technological devices are used to scare away seals from the salmon cages and thereby move to this eventuality.

‘I believe the industry wishes to move to this situation themselves and their representative body, the Scottish Salmon Producers’ Organisation [SSPO], has made this clear.’

New US rules will ban imports of fish from farms which kill marine mammals, including seals.

Emails have emerged showing officials attempted to seek an exemption for Scottish fish farms.

The campaign group Salmon Watch Scotland obtained the emails under Freedom of Information laws.

In them, officials from Marine Scotland argued that the industry in Scotland was ‘very different from fish farming in the US’ and argued that the rules in Scotland do not allow the ‘reckless’ shooting of seals, and that the intention is not to reduce the overall seal population. It also argued that shooting individual seals was a measure of ‘last resort’.

However, the efforts were unsuccessful, with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminisexport tration listing Scotland’s industry as being officially covered by the ban. About 150 fish farms in Scotland are likely to be affected.

Campaigner Don Staniford, from Scottish Salmon Watch, said: ‘If Scottish salmon farmers want to to the US, they must stop slaughtering seals – no ifs, no buts, no bullets.

‘Shamefully, the Scottish Government has been working behind the scenes in a desperate attempt to wriggle off the hook.

‘Rather than protecting the lethal industry, the Scottish Government should be protecting seals.’

The number of seals shot at salmon farms in Scotland has fallen for six consecutive years, from 241 in 2011 to 49 in 2017.

Scott Landsburgh, chief executive of the SSPO, said: ‘Direct action is a last resort and used only when all other methods have been exhausted.’

‘No ifs, no buts, no bullets’ ‘Direct action is a last resort’