Scottish Salmon Watch, 27 July 2018
Failing Fish Farms: Scotland's Worst Salmon Farms Named & Shamed
- 51 sites including Marine Harvest's Loch Leven salmon farm promoted by Prince Charles & Scotland's first salmon farm to be certified by the ASC (now expired)
Documents disclosed by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) via Freedom of Information (FOI) expose the poor practices of Scotland's worst salmon farms. In February, BBC News revealed that 51 fish farms in Scotland were failing to comply with environmental protection measures yet SEPA failed to name the companies responsible. In July, SEPA finally disclosed documents naming and shaming the salmon farming companies guilty of non-compliance during 2016 [1].
Scottish Salmon Watch can now reveal that Scottish salmon's worst operator is Norwegian-owned Scottish Sea Farms with 10 fish farms failing SEPA's compliance assessment in 2016 (with 9 farms assessed as "Poor" and one as "Very Poor"). Norwegian-owned Marine Harvest and Canadian-owned Cooke Aquaculture closely follow both with 9 failing fish farms and Jersey-registered and Swiss-owned the Scottish Salmon Company with 6 failing fish farms (all are members of the Scottish Salmon Producers Organisation).
One of Marine Harvest's 9 salmon farms rated as "Poor" was Loch Leven - the first salmon farm in Scotland to be certified by the Aquaculture Stewardship Council and one of only two ASC-certified farms in Scotland before its certification expired in February 2018. Marine Harvest's other ASC-certified site in Loch Linnhe has had its certification "cancelled" according to the ASC and expires in November - with another three salmon farms operated by Marine Harvest (Duich, Loch Alsh & Ardintoul) also having their ASC-certification "cancelled" [2]. Marine Harvest's farm in Loch Leven was visited by Prince Charles in 2016 who said it "has set the benchmark" and described the operations as "sustainable".
Photo: Prince Charles preaching about "sustainability" on his web-site using a photo of himself standing in front of Marine Harvest's of Loch Leven salmon farm (rated as "Poor" by SEPA)
Marine Harvest's salmon farm in Loch Duich - a Special Area of Conservation supposedly protected under EU Law - was ranked "Poor" by SEPA due to a significant failure for contamination of sediments with residues of the toxic chemical Emamectin benzoate.
Two of Scottish Sea Farms' 10 salmon farms rated as "Very Poor" or "Poor" were located at Fishnish in the Sound of Mull - the site of the killing a humpback whale in 2014 and exceedance of lice limits in January 2018. Fishnish A salmon farm "failed repeatedly" according to SEPA with "6 consecutive unsatisfactory surveys since 2006" and Fishnish B had "3 consecutive unsatisfactory surveys since 2010" leading to SEPA imposing a conditional reduction in biomass on both sites.
Another Scottish Sea Farm site in Loch Spelve at Balure on the Isle of Mull was rated "Very Poor" due to exceedance of the Environmental Quality Standard for residues of Emamectin benzoate (a toxic chemical known to kill lobsters) and evidence of drug over-dosing.
One of the Scottish Salmon Company's 6 salmon rated as "Poor" was Gometra salmon farm off the Isle of Mull - a site controversially approved back in 2012 despite a campaign calling it "dangerous" and a "blight on the horizon". Another "Poor" salmon farm operated by the Scottish Salmon Company is located at Inch Kenneth in Loch na Keal on the Isle of Mull - described by SEPA as failing all benthic surveys since 2002.
Cooke Aquaculture's hatchery in Furnace was rated "Poor" for effluent discharge failures into Loch Fyne whilst Wester Ross Fisheries - a company with a long history of pollution breaches - had two salmon farms assessed by SEPA as "Poor" due to 'unsatisfactory' benthic pollution in Little Loch Broom and Loch Broom.
Here's the list of 42 salmon farms rated as "Poor" or "Very Poor" in 2016 - download Excel spreadsheet obtained from SEPA via Operators List
"Salmon farms across Scotland are riding roughshod over environmental regulations," said Don Staniford, Director of Scottish Salmon Watch. "Even the best salmon farm Scotland has to offer - Marine Harvest's Loch Leven farm championed by Prince Charles and certified by the Aquaculture Stewardship Council - has been officially ranked by SEPA as 'Poor'. How embarrassing - shame on Scottish salmon!"
"Expanding salmon farming in Scotland yet further with a doubling or even trebling by 2030 would be sheer lunacy," continued Staniford. "Hopefully the forthcoming report into salmon farming by the Scottish Parliament's Rural Economy & Connectivity Committee - expected 'in the early autumn' - will clamp down on the poor practices endemic in Scottish salmon farming. SEPA should immediately close down all salmon farms guilty of systematic non-compliance and perennial poor performance."
Download in full with Background and Notes to Editors via:
Press Release: "Failing Fish Farms: Scotland's Worst Salmon Farms Named & Shamed" (27 July 2018) (PDF)
Press Release: "Failing Fish Farms: Scotland's Worst Salmon Farms Named & Shamed" (27 July 2018) (Word)