SSPO vow to release sea lice data

SEA LICE numbers at all Scottish fish farms will now be published, MSPs were told at a Holyrood inquiry into the environmental impacts of salmon farming.

Last month the Scottish Parliament’s Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee heard a review of the scientific evidence, published by the Dunbeg-based Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS).

Last week the watchdog took evidence from David Sandison of the Scottish Salmon Producers Organisation, and John Aitchison of Friends of the Sound of Jura, which campaigned against plans to install a fish farm at Dounie in the Sound of Jura.

Mr Sandison began by welcoming the committee’s comparison with a 2002 report, Review and Synthesis of the Environmental Impacts of Aquaculture.

‘The risks that are associated with the business of salmon farming will be exactly the same,’ he said. ‘They are well quantified and well known.

‘The issues that come out of the report are whether we understand the impacts of salmon farming and whether we have the right information to measure those impacts in Scotland.

‘The report is reassuring in that, when it analyses those risks, it puts most of them in the low risk category.’

However, Mr Aitchison responded: ‘I cannot agree with that, I am afraid. The problems are the same but their scale is much worse. There has been an enormous increase in sea lice, and there is solid proof that the sea lice affect the populations of wild salmonids, which include sea trout, not just salmon.

‘The pollution aspects are also much clearer now than they were before – 45 sea lochs have been polluted with industrial chemicals. The chemical use is enormously increased because of the sea lice. It is on a different scale and the impacts are much larger.

‘The report says there is no information on almost every subject. One of the big questions is: why is there so little information from Scotland? That is usually the excuse for not dealing with sea lice. Norway, Ireland and other countries are doing enormous amounts of work on that, but it is not done here.’

Mr Sanderson then pledged: ‘From here on and forthwith, we will publish all data on sea lice counts on farms in Scotland on a farm-by-farm basis.

‘We want to have a proper open and honest dialogue about the status of farm sites in Scotland. There is absolutely no problem with our being completely open and transparent about that data. There is nothing that we wish to hide away.’

Mr Aitchison replied: ‘It is welcome, but it has come about as a result of the information commissioner enforcing the decision to publish the data – something that the Government refused to do, because the industry said initially that it did not want to.’

Green MSP Mark Ruskell asked Mr Sandison: ‘Will the industry also publish data on salmon mortality, broken down by farm and with the reasons for those morts set out?’

Mr Sandison said: ‘Yes. We will provide mortality data at farm level and will, from time to time, give a commentary on any disease issues that might be associated with that mortality.’