Urgent scrutiny of fish farms needed to safeguard salmon

Emergency investigations should be carried out immediately at all of Scotland’s salmon farms to prevent a “summer surge of deaths”, campaigners are warning.

Nearly 43,000 people have signed a petition calling for urgent unannounced inspections of commercial salmon farms to safeguard fish health as sea temperatures rise.

The petition claims serious welfare abuses are taking place at some Scottish sites.

“Scottish salmon cultivation is as horrific as battery farming,” said Anna Liberadzki, from international consumer campaign group Sumofus.

“As long as the mega corporations who own Scotland’s salmon farms can get away with it, they will allow the fish to suffer while raking in huge profits for a so-called sustainable product. Marine Scotland must step in. The alternative is a summer surge of salmon deaths and disease.”

Don Staniford, director of the campaign group Scottish Salmon Watch, said: “Unannounced inspections of salmon farms are urgently needed to prevent further mass mortalities and welfare abuse.”

Fish farming is worth around £1 billion to the Scottish economy, with salmon the country’s top food export. Ministers have said they want to double annual production, currently around 160,000 tonnes, by 2030.

The plan has sparked outrage from environmentalists, who claim open-cage farms are harming the ecosystem, causing animal suffering and wiping out wild salmon.

A Scottish parliamentary inquiry into the environmental impacts of the industry found “insufficient evidence” to halt expansion.

The Fish Health Inspectorate has a statutory requirement to carry out unannounced site inspections. Two were conducted in 2018.

Official reports from salmon firms around Scotland show at least nine million fish died as a result of diseases, bungled treatments, bad handling and other problems since 2016.

Hamish Macdonell, strategic engagement director for the Scottish Salmon Producers’ Organisation, insists the industry supports “legitimate independent scrutiny”.

He said: “Farms undergo audits and inspections from retailers, UK and international certification schemes, regulators and other stakeholders, so there is seldom a week goes by that their operations are not scrutinised.”