Welfare Abuse at Scottish Salmon Farms - Why No Legal Enforcement Or Prosecutions?

The weight of evidence recording widespread welfare abuse on Scottish salmon farms is surely now so overwhelming to bring legal action for systematic breaches of the Animal Health & Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006?

The latest damning photographic evidence was slipped out earlier this week (10 September 2019) via the Scottish Government's Fish Health Inspectorate - surely these salmon (only five fish are sampled and photographed per inspection) have been subjected to cruelty, torture and welfare abuse?

Photographs taken by the Scottish Government's Fish Health Inspectorate - slipped out unnoticed in April 2019 - reveal severely damaged farmed salmon at The Scottish Salmon Company's Strondoir Bay salmon farm in Loch Fyne in February 2019.

And here's photos from a Fish Health Inspectorate visit to The Scottish Salmon Company's salmon farm at Portree in February 2019 - including "visible damage to the heads of fish", skeletal muscle necrosis, dermatitis, lesions "likely associated with mechanical damage", anorexia, bilateral exopthalmia, petechial haemorrhaging, salmon gill poxvirus, Neoparamoeba perurans (the causative agent of Amoebic Gill Disease), Paranculeospora theridon, Vibrio spp, Photobacterium sp and Infectious Pancreatic Necrosis virus:

Here's photos of an inspection at the North Papa salmon farm operated by Norwegian-owned Grieg Seafood in March 2019. These fish have faces only a father would love - the physical damage is "attributed to a recent Optilicer treatment" and the farmed salmon have been dosed on antibiotics to treat Winter sores.

Scottish Salmon Watch believes that salmon farms across Scotland are in breach of Section 19 ("Unnecessary Suffering"); Section 21 ("Cruel Operations") and Section 24 ("Ensuring Welfare of Animals") of the Animal Health & Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006.

Here's damning photographic evidence obtained by Scottish Salmon Watch via Freedom of Information in 2018 (and published via The Ferret):

Given the gruesome nature of the evidence it is not surprising that lawyers acting for two salmon farming companies (Norwegian-owned Scottish Sea Farms & Swiss-owned The Scottish Salmon Company) threatened legal action if the Scottish Government disclosed the photos.

Video footage shot by Scottish Salmon Watch inside salmon farms in 2018 and 2019 also shows deformities, lice infestation and welfare abuse.

Photos leaked by a worker at Mowi's salmon farm at Carradale in Kilbrannan Sound expose the horror story of 300,000 farmed salmon flayed alive - battered to death in storms in March 2018.

Yet the 'competent' authorities with responsibility for animal welfare - in the shape of Scottish Ministers, the Animal & Plant Health Agency, the SSPCA and Police Scotland's Wildlife Crime Unit - are turning a blind eye to systematic and shocking welfare abuse on salmon farms. Raising complaints feels like banging your head against a brick wall.

Scottish Ministers claimed in a letter dated 20 August 2019 that:

Over 43,000 people have signed a petition co-ordinated by SumOfUs calling for immediate unannounced inspections of salmon farms.

STV News: "Inspection call to stop 'surge of deaths' at salmon farms"

BBC News: "Salmon petition calls for 'emergency' fish farm inspections"

The compelling evidence presented above coupled with 'Case Information' published by the Scottish Government's Fish Health Inspectorate contradicts the Scottish Government's view that there is not widespread welfare abuse on salmon farms. Scottish Salmon Watch believes that Scottish Ministers - together with the SSPCA (who is chaired by a salmon farmer - working for Scottish Sea Farms who in 2018 threatened legal action against the disclosure of photos of welfare abuse of farmed salmon) and the RSPCA who earn close to £1 million from certifying 70% of Scottish salmon farming production as welfare-friendly - are irresponsible in not policing the Animal Health & Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006.

How can Corin Smith's nauseating video footage shot inside The Scottish Salmon Company's salmon farm at Vacasay in Loch Roag in August 2018 be ignored by the authorities?

A FOI reply by the Scottish Government in May 2019 revealed that there had been only one unannounced inspection visit to a marine salmon farm (at Mowi's Port Na Cro site) in the whole of 2018.

Following a formal complaint by Scottish Salmon Watch in June 2019 we know that there has been at least one more unannounced inspection of a marine salmon farm in 2019.

A follow up unannounced inspection by the Fish Health Inspectorate on 13 June 2019 (published online on 8 August 2019) referred to "blind, rubbed and moribund" farmed salmon infested with lice.

Marine Scotland's letter to The Scottish Salmon Company dated 17 July 2019 included reference to "a number of blind fish with damaged eyes and flank abrasions".

"All five fish sampled were moribund,lethargic and blind," reported Marine Scotland's Fish Health Inspector. "Externally four had haemorrhaged eyes and three had flank lesions including a 'boil' like lesion on fish three. Internally fish three and four had enlarged livers and fish four had an enlarged gall bladder":

And:

In July 2019, a complaint by Scottish Salmon Watch cited video evidence of welfare abuse of cleaner fish at Mowi's salmon farms at 'Bay of the Dead Heads' and SW Shuna.

Scottish Salmon Watch's letter of 20 July 2019 (filed with Police Scotland's Wildlife Crime Unit, the Animal & Plant Health Agency and the Scottish Government's Fish Health Inspectorate) included the following photos (sourced from Go Pro video footage shot inside the salmon farm):

Here's shocking video footage of dead and dying cleaner fish at a Mowi's 'Bay of the Dead Heads' salmon farm in July 2019:

Here's some of the gruesome images from our visit on 2 July 2019:

Data on cleaner fish mortalities between 2013 and 2019 is hidden away in various Fish Health Inspectorate 'Case Information' files. For example, by searching the June 2019 data we now know that 10,000 lumpfish died at Mowi's salmon farm at Port Na Cro.

Mowi's salmon farm at Bagh Dail Nan Ceann (Bay of the Dead Heads) also detailed mortality and disease problems in cleaner fish in the FHI June 2019 report (with "craters disease" cited).

Here's a Tweet:

Read more about the welfare nightmare for cleaner fish via Fish that eat lice off farmed salmon suffer, says report

With rising Summer temperatures and warmer weather, the alarm bells are ringing that 2019 could be the worst year on record for mortalities and diseases on Scottish salmon farms. Salmon Business reported in May:

And expect mortalities and disease to be much worse in the second half of 2019. As Scottish Salmon Watch warned last October:

Corin Smith knows only too well the bad smell coming from Scottish salmon farming - in 2018 he tracked mort trucks delivering tonnes of diseased salmon to a mort pit in North Uist. Watch the stomach-churning footage on the BBC One Show in September 2018 online here

How many more dead and diseased farmed salmon will it take before Scottish Ministers take action against salmon farms for welfare abuse? How high does Scottish salmon's mort mountain need to rise to before it triggers a prosecution for breach of Section 19 ("Unnecessary Suffering"); Section 21 ("Cruel Operations") and Section 24 ("Ensuring Welfare of Animals") of the Animal Health & Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006?

Mass mortalities and welfare abuse of farmed salmon is also a lethal side-effect of mechanical treatments including the 'Thermolicer' (a torture chamber for farmed salmon designed to heat treat lice-infestation).

Authorities in Norway are considering a ban on the Thermolicer. Salmon Business reported in August 2019:

Farmed salmon across Scotland continue to suffer pain, welfare abuse and mass mortalities due to continued use of the Thermolicer.

Back in 2016, Compassion In World Farming (CIWF) called for a ban on the Thermolicer in Scotland describing it as a "brutal treatment", "inherently stressful" and with "poor welfare". CIWF's call for a ban followed a report in The Sunday Herald detailing over 175,000 dead farmed salmon including 95,000 dead fish at a Mowi (Marine Harvest) salmon farm due to the operation of a Thermolicer.

In January 2018 a Norwegian veterinarian "highlighted major head injuries she has seen to fish treated with warm water delousing machinery".

In July 2018, Scottish Salmon Watch called for a ban on the Thermolicer citing a further 100,000 deaths in 14 separate incidents between August 2017 and January 2018.

The press release continued:

Scottish Salmon Watch believes that the continued operation of the Thermolicer on salmon farms represents a breach of Section 19 ("Unnecessary Suffering"); Section 21 ("Cruel Operations") and Section 24 ("Ensuring Welfare of Animals") of the Animal Health & Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006.

More details on welfare problems on Scottish salmon farms can be found via a report - "Fish Welfare on Scotland's Salmon Farms" - published by OneKind in August 2018.