Last week’s exposé in a national newspaper of fish welfare abuse, showed some 4 tonnes of diseased salmon (that’s approximately 2,000 x 2kg fish) being incinerated at Scottish Sea Farms’ fish farm at Loch Linnhe. Something which has ramifications beyond this particular open-net facility.
Loch Long Salmon (LLS) is proposing to site two semi-closed industrial fish farms adjacent to the Shuna Point, Loch Linnhe site. These farms will have a total capacity of some 16,000 tonnes. This is in addition to the experimental farm LLS is proposing in Loch Long where planning permission was refused by the National Park Authority (NPA) in November 2022, and is now being appealed to Scottish Ministers.
Location
At the Public Hearing in October 2022, LLS Director Stewart Hawthorne stated “..to show its true potential to transform the rest of the salmon farming industry in Scotland, we needed a location separated from existing salmon farms. This site is uniquely placed to do this because it’s in the right place“. Prior to this in a letter to the NPA in October 2022 he stated “To demonstrate a best-in-class approach we sought a location where there would not be any effect on the results from existing salmon farms which is critical to enabling us to demonstrate the power of this technology to all stakeholders”.
Loch Linnhe already has some 12 fish farms in its waters. The proposed location for the LLS experimental farm at Lurignish is just 850 metres from the alleged “disease-ridden” Scottish Sea Farms’ Shuna Point salmon farm. Whilst it would appear that in Stewart Hawthorne’s view the Loch Long facility not being close to other fish farms is critical, this appears not to be the case for LLS at Loch Linnhe.
Jellyfish
According to the Daily Record report on the Shuna Point incident, “industry insiders” cited swarms of parasitic micro-jellyfish, thought to be linked to climate change, may be a reason for sea lice and disease in these (open-net) fish farms.
The mention of jellyfish should be a concern to Loch Long Salmon. In 2020 Canadian conservation group Clayoquot Action observed the trial of a semi-closed containment system, similar to that envisaged for Loch Long and Loch Linnhe, being trialled by Cermaq in British Colombia. They observed fish die-offs at the facility and cited one possible reason for the premature ending of the trial was the location being packed with jellyfish which may have clogged the semi-closed system (as the fish need freshly oxygenated water to breathe).
Last week’s newspaper article has highlighted the urgent need for greater welfare standards and transparency in Scotland’s aquaculture industry and this transparency must be extended to those majority-foreign-owned start-ups intent on introducing untried technology to our shores.
The Scottish Government must act.
Loch Linnhe residents opposing these mammoth fish farms have formed an action group. Please visit and support them at www.longlivelochlinnhe.org.uk/ on Facebook and on Twitter.