Skyfall for Scottish Salmon!

Day 3: Isle of Mull, Scotland (follow our tour of Scotland & Ireland online here)

GAAIA and Wild Salmon First are heading tomorrow to the Isle of Skye on the West coast of Scotland for a two-day tour (7-9 November) of disease-ridden feedlots operated by Marine Harvest and the Scottish Salmon Company (read our Itinerary online here).

Photo: Elena Edwards of Wild Salmon First in the Sound of Mull (5 November) in front of a salmon farm operated by Norwegian-owned Scottish Sea Farms

"May the global voices for wild salmon unite to deliver the message to Norway that Norwegian salmon farms are not welcome and must go!" said Elena Edwards of Wild Salmon First who is visiting from British Columbia, Canada. "The stench of Scottish salmon farming is nauseating."

Our route North weaves past dozens of Norwegian-owned salmon farms on the West coast of Scotland and the rugged terrain of the Mountains of Glencoe where the new James Bond film 'Skyfall' was filmed.

“The sky is falling on the Scottish salmon farming industry,” said Don Staniford of the Global Alliance Against Industrial Aquaculture in a press release (6 November). “Scottish salmon is farmed and diseased. Lamlash Bay on the Isle of Arran is ‘ground zero’ with reports of infectious gill diseases since 2007. Since then Amoebic Gill Disease has spread like a malignant cancer along the coast of Scotland from Argyll to Orkney and from Skye to the Western Isles.”

A dossier of data obtained via Freedom of Information reveals that Scottish salmon farming is being ravaged by infectious diseases led by the parasitic killers Amoebic Gill Disease, Proliferative Gill Inflammation and Chlamydia: ‘Scottish Salmon’s Dirty Big Secret’. Now a former PR adviser of the salmon farming company first affected by gill diseases has blown the whistle stating that she was “not prepared to lie to journalists about the extent of the mortalities”.

Official data obtained via Freedom of Information from the Scottish Government reveals that Amoebic Gill Disease was first reported at Lamlash Bay on the Isle of Arran in October 2011 killing 279,000 farmed salmon. By April 2012 the deadly disease had spread to 15 sites including Loch Roag in the Western Isles, the Firth of Lorne, Seil Sound, the Sound of Mull, Loch Kishorn, the Isle of Gigha and the Orkney Isles. GAAIA has now filed a FOI with Marine Scotland requesting disease data from April to November 2012.

Read more via ‘Gill Diseases: Scottish Salmon’s Dirty Big Secret’

Next stop is on the Isle of Skye with a public meeting in Armdale, Sleat, on Thursday (8 November):

Locals are rising up against Marine Harvest's plans to expand on the Isle of Skye. The front page of the local newspaper, the West Highland Free Press (2 November), referred to "overwhelming opposition" at a public meeting in Sleat last week.

Photo: Mark Carter of Marine Concern & Elena Edwards of Wild Salmon First at a public hearing on the Isle of Mull (5 November)

"At last Thursday’s meeting in Sabhal Mòr Ostaig 39 of those present opposed the development, with two voting in favour and three abstaining," reported the West Highland Free Press (2 November). "Marine Harvest have lodged plans for a 12-pen site, which they say will create seven new jobs in the area. But residents on the Sleat side of the loch have expressed opposition — largely on environmental grounds — and say they were not consulted on the development."

On 12 November there is another public meeting in Ullapool (download poster online here):