Group in call for tougher salmon farming regime

Keith Findlay
January 28, 2010
The Press and Journal (Scotland)

A GROUP fighting to preserve stocks of wild salmon and trout in the nation’s rivers yesterday called on the Scottish Government and salmon farmers to harmonise standards of environmental protection between this country and Norway.

The Salmon and Trout Association (STA) said the move was badly needed because the west Highlands and islands had become a “dumping ground” for bad practice in parasite control.

But the Scottish Salmon Producers’ Organisation (SSPO), which represents fish farmers, insisted Scotland and Norway had to be looked at individually as conditions were different.

The STA urged Scotland to follow the lead of Norway, which had recently introduced stringent new limits for sea-lice numbers on salmon farms, and apply the same rigorous criteria to salmon production sites.

Norway’s ministry of fisheries has decreed that numbers of sea-lice in the country’s marine salmon farms this spring must not exceed 0.1 per fish – one louse per 10 salmon. If sea-lice numbers are not within permitted limits, an order for the destruction of all salmon in the pen may be issued. The Scottish salmon farm sector’s target for sea-lice this spring is 0.5 per fish.

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