Scottish farmed salmon industry using loopholes to cover up harm, report alleges

theguardian.com:

The Scottish farmed salmon industry is using loopholes to cover up evidence of environmental harm, poor animal welfare and high levels of disease, an investigation has found.

Using open data, investigators from the charity WildFish allege salmon farms are avoiding mandatory reporting of sea lice prevalence in fish to cover up the scale of parasite infestations, which in some cases are more than 20 times those stipulated in the industry’s own code of good practice.

WildFish says the scale of disease in the waters is putting wild salmon and trout at risk, as well as exposing poor animal welfare standards in the industry.

“In allowing these diseases to proliferate in farmed salmon … salmon farming companies are risking the health of populations of wild Atlantic salmon and sea trout. Furthermore, they are potentially sending to market fish that have been raised in pens suffering from high mortalities, disease and sea lice infestations,” the report says. “This is the antithesis of responsible farming.”

The report says the mortality rates of farmed salmon in marine cages are unacceptably high; the most recent available data shows that on average 24.1% of the salmon stocked in Scottish marine farms died before harvest. The Scottish salmon industry produces about 200,000 tonnes of fish annually and production rates are expected to increase to 400,000 tonnes annually by 2030.

The report says some companies are using “harvesting” – slaughter for market – as a way of avoiding submitting mandatory sea lice counts each week to Marine Scotland. A loophole in the regulations means farms do not have to submit lice counts if they are about to harvest the fish – known as the withdrawal period prior to harvesting.

“There are clear and frequent