AN environmental campaigner is claiming the numbers of fish in Scottish salmon farms dying from disease will increase this year.
Don Staniford, a Vancouver-based activist working under the Global Alliance Against Industrial Aquaculture, said figures showed a potential trend that could mean more fish die in farms this year than the seven million recorded for 2011.
He said statistics from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency – which he has released under the title "Fishyleaks" – showed there had been more than two million dead fish recorded in salmon farms around Scotland in the first three months of 2012 alone.
Mr Staniford said there were a variety of diseases affecting the dead fish, known as "morts" .
He said: "In 2011 there were 6.9 million morts – an increase on the 5.3 million reported during 2010.The 'mort mountain' includes nearly 700,000 dead farmed salmon from just 11 sites."
One firm said the figures it provided the campaigner were inaccurate due to a recording error by the company.
The Scottish Government said the most recent figures it had showed no indication of an increase in the numbers of farmed salmon that die during the process.
Scott Landsburgh, chief executive of the Scottish Salmon Producers’ Organisation, said: "There are huge benefits to farming fish in a natural pristine environment. However, from time to time, fish can be lost to the likes of attacks by aggressive seals, naturally-occurring algal blooms, jellyfish and 100 mph storms.
"Fish farming is highly professional, but losses can happen, just as in terrestrial farming. The RSPCA Freedom Food welfare scheme, which is used by the majority of salmon farmers, ensures the highest levels of welfare are adopted.
"Wild salmon are exposed to exactly the same factors as farmed. The survival of farmed salmon is vastly higher than the survival of wild salmon."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article