Download high resolution photos taken on 7 May 2021 at the RSPCA Assured salmon farm operated by Norskott Havbruk (Scottish Sea Farms) in Loch Spelve on the Isle of Mull:
"Exciting" job opportunity developing @rspcaassured policy in relation to welfare of farmed salmon - must have strong stomach, love seeing dead seals & diseased fish and ideally employed by the salmon farming industry! Deadline for applications is 1 June https://t.co/fCdsMOfBXCpic.twitter.com/rqZgoAcoAl
The latest version of the RSPCA's farmed salmon standards - published in February 2021 - makes for alarming reading (especially if you're unlucky to be a seal living near a salmon farm).
How do you protect your RSPCA Assured salmon since it is now illegal to kills seals? Does your Loch Spelve salmon farm have anti-predator nets? How many seals have you shot & killed since 31 January 2021 when it became illegal to kill seals?https://t.co/64dNCuCC3Zpic.twitter.com/x4incJbHyS
FTAO Chris Sherwood CEO of RSPCA, Clive Brazier, CEO of RSPCA Freedom Foods (trading as RSPCA Assured) and the RSPCA and Freedom Food Directors and Trustees.
Dear Mr Sherwood and Mr Brazier,
I have had no response to the e-mail (copied below) which I sent to you both on 25th March this year. I can only assume that is because you simply cannot defend your position regarding RSPCA endorsement of the cruel, unsustainable, environmentally damaging and wildlife persecuting industry contained within the filthy floating factory fish pharms which are a blight on Scottish coastal waters.
Did you, as I requested, copy my e-mail to your Directors and Trustees? If you did surely some of them could see through your blind support for intensive salmon farming?
Once again I ask you to copy this e-mail to your Directors and Trustees in the hope that someone within the RSPCA can see sense and get the RSPCA out of the stinking fishy mess you have got yourself into.
I’ve just had a quick flick through your updated Welfare Standards for Farmed Atlantic Salmon which you published in February 2021 and in which you acknowledge that salmon farmers can no longer legally kill seals after 1st March 2021. This of course is because the Scottish Government were forced by the US Government to ban the deliberate killing of seals by all salmon farmers in Scotland. The US Government having achieved this at a stroke while the RSPCA and others have been debating the issue with the salmon faming industry for the best part of two decades.
I was therefore somewhat surprised to read the following on page 14 of your current Welfare Standards for Farmed Atlantic Salmon:
“The shooting of seals is against the principles of the RSPCA welfare standards. However, at the present time, it is acknowledged that as a last resort only, i.e. when all available non-lethal deterrents have been effectively deployed and the welfare of the fish is being compromised (i.e. they are being attacked), it may be necessary to use a lethal measure to safeguard the welfare of the fish.”
“The shooting of seals is not permitted, other than in exceptional circumstances (see i box below) and when all required non-lethal deterrents have been effectively deployed (see relevant Standards below), i.e. as a last resort”.
“An ‘exceptional circumstance’ is defined as an unexpected/unforeseen event, such as the unavoidable failure of nets, ADDs/ASDs (Acoustic Deterrent Devices/Acoustic Startle Devices), systems or other equipment used to protect the fish from seals due to extreme weather or human error, and where a seal is found to be in the act of attacking the salmon.”
Can you tell me what I missed in either the Scottish Government announcement that no further licences to shoot seals would be issued to salmon farmers or the US Government announcement that fish imports would be banned from countries which allowed persecution of marine mammals by fishery and aquaculture interests? Unless I have missed something it appears that you are not only continuing to endorse the shooting of seals by RSPCA Assured salmon farmers, you are actual telling those farmers they can break the law protecting seals.
I have only had a quick look through your new Standards but I cannot see anything about farmers keeping seals at a distance from the salmon cages. As I explained in my e-mail of 25th March (copied below, see pars 6 & 7) unless you ensure your approved farms do this you are endorsing a product which does not even meet the legal welfare standards for all animal farming as set out in the Animal Health & Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006.
Any chance of a reply this time?
Regards,
John F. Robins,
Animal Concern
My E-mail of 25th March 2021
RSPCA,
Wilberforce Way,
Southwater,
Horsham,
West Sussex, RH13 9RS
FTAO Chris Sherwood CEO of RSPCA, Clive Brazier, CEO of RSPCA Freedom Foods (trading as RSPCA Assured) and the RSPCA and Freedom Food Directors and Trustees.
Dear Sirs,
I write concerning RSPCA Assured salmon farmed in Scotland. I would be grateful if you would forward this e-mail to your Trustees, Board of Directors and any executives working in relevant areas.
For over fifteen years, in my position with Animal Concern and my previous post with Save Our Seals Fund, I tried, very much unsuccessfully, to persuade RSPCA Freedom Foods to insist that RSPCA approved salmon farms be forbidden to shoot seals and instead forced to deploy proper predator exclusion nets to keep seals and other predators well away from the salmon in the net cages.
I also described the seals discussion forum the RSPCA and others entered into with the salmon farming industry as a useless talking shop used by the industry to prevent you taking decisive action to stop them killing seals. I think I was proved right when, after over a decade of you talking with the industry, it instead took action by the US Government to finally stop salmon farmers in Scotland shooting seals. I’m proud to say that when the US Government announced their ban on the import of fish from countries which allow commercial fishery interests to persecute marine mammals they referred to a letter I sent them requesting such a ban.
While this US initiative, campaigned for by ourselves and several other organisations, was successful, the RSPCA seemed content to receive reports from their endorsed fish farms on the numbers of seals shot. Only today I received copies of a few scraps of information obtained under FOI by my colleague at Scottish Salmon Watch. These showed that in the space of only 5 days in May 2020 one of your endorsed salmon farmers, Scottish Sea Farms, killed 3 seals. Perhaps you could tell me how many seals in total were killed at RSPCA endorsed salmon farms in 2020?
Forgive me for appearing to blow my own trumpet but I am only trying to make it clear that, after forty plus years campaigning on this issue, I do know a little about what I am talking about. I hope you will take seriously what I am about to ask you.
I was instrumental in having fish welfare recognised in the Animal Health & Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006. Under that Act fish farmers, like their terrestrial colleagues, have a legal duty to protect their stock from the attention of predators. This does not mean simply stopping predators from physically attacking the fish. It requires farmers to prevent predators from getting close enough to be seen or smelled by the fish thus causing them fear and stress. Shooting seals cannot achieve this and neither can the use of double cage nets which still allow seals to get very close to the fish. What is required are external, properly tensioned and maintained predator exclusion nets to keep seals well away from the caged salmon.
I must admit that I was wrong about the effect predator proximity has on farmed salmon. A recently published report (linked below) shows that I vastly underestimated the adverse effect this has on the welfare of the salmon. After reading that report I do not see how the RSPCA can, on fish welfare grounds, endorse any marine salmon farm which does not deploy predator exclusion nets as described above. Either insist your endorsed farms use such nets or, better still, move to closed cycle production in land based tanks. This will become even more necessary as the harmful effects of many sonic predator scaring devices cause them to be withdrawn or their use made illegal by the Scottish Government in an attempt to belatedly meet the requirements of the USA Marine Mammal Protection Act.
Finally I would appreciate it if you would tell me what you have done to address the horrific problems of salmon welfare at time of slaughter as shown by the video evidence obtained by Animal Equality UK (see the video linked below)? Since that video was published I have seen a statement by another industry whistle blower who claims the cruelty and extreme suffering shown on the Animal Equality UK video is not unique and may be commonplace in other salmon slaughtering facilities.
Salmon farming is a cruel, unsustainable and environmentally damaging industry. It is estimated that between 10 and 20 million salmon die from injury or disease on salmon farms in Scotland each year. Huge numbers of salmon also escape into the wild every year causing more suffering and environmental damage.
In the last couple of months evidence has come to light of incidents where gannets have become entangled and killed in the top nets of salmon farms. Yet another example of suffering caused by salmon farming.
If you cannot find salmon farmers genuinely worthy of endorsement by the RSPCA I ask you to stop allowing your once good name being used to pedal products cruelly produced in these filthy floating factory farms.
If, despite the vast array of evidence of cruelty to fish, wildlife exploitation and environmental damage, the RSPCA does decide to continue endorsing salmon farms can I ask you to at least close the doors on any more farms joining your scheme. Instead of calling a long overdue moratorium on the expansion of salmon farming the Scottish Government is making the huge error of encouraging the industry to rapidly increase output, aiming to double production within 10 years. Salmon farming is already totally unsustainable and the huge volume of salmon in the current system is beyond the handling capacity of the industry thus the massive numbers of mortalities and the inability to slaughter fish humanely.
Massive volumes of wild fish are caught all around the world to be processed into food pellets for farmed fish. This is causing depletion of wild fish stocks, damaging wildlife food chains and causing shortages for human populations reliant on subsistence fishing.
Do not let the RSPCA name be used to expand the market and thereby increase even further the animal suffering and environmental damage inherent in industrial scale salmon production.
A £10,000 reward has been offered for information on the illegal shooting of seals after it emerged Police Scotland and the National Wildlife Crime Unit were passed intelligence reports about a number of killings.https://t.co/opzT3BtGvC
Following the article, a whistleblower contacted Scottish Salmon Watch passing on information about a long-standing Mowi manager shooting a seal with a shotgun!
Email just in from an industry whistleblower: "A long-standing Mowi manager once shot a seal on Lewis with a shotgun & laughed as the poor creature writhed around screaming as it died slowly & painfully with a shotgun wound to the side of the head" @ScotlandMowi@rspcaassuredpic.twitter.com/1gsKU8l1eP
If the RSPCA was being paid by seals surely you would protect them? The fact is that salmon farmers pay the RSPCA almost £1 million for certification https://t.co/NUMZFaPYed Shame on the RSPCA - rest assured that buying RSPCA Assured salmon means putting seals in the firing line pic.twitter.com/XMHH77wHpR
Fair to say RSPCA tried to more tightly regulate animal welfare standards in salmon farming through its RSPCA Assured programme & this significantly reduced seal shooting but I agree it should have opposed all killing from start. We now hope to see end of seal shooting for good
If the RSPCA failed then why are they still coining in over £500K per year from certifying Scottish farmed salmon? Surely the RSPCA should ditch the welfare nightmare of salmon farming accredition whilst they still have some kind of reputation left? https://t.co/43qBXvAjZC
Scottish Salmon Watch have now alerted the US Government to the issue:
From: Don Staniford<[email protected]> Date: Fri, May 14, 2021 at 6:21 AM Subject: Seal killing continues in Scotland - sanctioned by the RSPCA To: Nina Young - NOAA Federal <[email protected]>
Nina,
Is NOAA aware that the latest RSPCA farmed salmon standards - which came into force in February 2021 - once again condone killing of seals?:
Data on actual killing of seals will be difficult to access since it is now illegal and the data is not collected and published by the Scottish Government.
However, ca. 70% of salmon farming production in Scotland is accredited via the RSPCA so it seems highly likely that the killing of seals is continuing albeit illegally.
Animal Concern and Scottish Salmon Watch have issued a £10,000 reward for information leading to a successful prosecution of a salmon farmer killing a seal illegally:
Can NOAA ask the Scottish Government for information since 31 January 2021 (when the killing of seals by salmon farms was banned) to monitor if the killing of seals is continuing?
Does NOAA allow an exemption for the "exceptional circumstances" detailed by the RSPCA?
Whilst Grieg Seafood took evasive action via installing anti-predator nets and did not report a single seal killed after 2017, it's clear from the data that Mowi, The Scottish Salmon Company, Loch Duart and Scottish Sea Farms pursued a policy of lethal control and buried the evidence:
And in January 2021, BBC News reported that the salmon farming industry claimed that 500,000 farmed salmon were killed in a twelve month period due to seals:
It seems clear that the salmon farming lobby, aided and abetted by the Scottish Government and the RSPCA, are preparing the "exceptional" case to justify the continued killing of seals.
In February 2021 - just after the killing of seals was banned by the Scottish Government - the Scottish Salmon Producers Organisation said:
"Seals are only ever shot as a last resort by farmers protecting their stock. The new figures, published today, show that 79 seals were shot in the 12 months to January 31 2021 which is the highest for seven years. This number reflects the increasingly serious threat seals pose to farm-raised salmon"
Tavish Scott, Chief Executive of the SSPO, said: “The Scottish Government has stopped fish farmers taking action to protect the welfare of fish without putting anything else in place. The law is a mess with three conflicting legislations. Farmers don’t know what they are legally permitted to do if a seal gets into a salmon pen."
Scottish Salmon Watch asks NOAA to look into this issue - it seems to me that the trigger-happy salmon farming industry has failed to install expensive anti-predator nets (i.e. not taking all the precautionary measures against seal attacks) and then is killing seals which have entered their farms. Seals are not to blame. It is salmon farms who have set up shop n seal nursery areas who are to blame. This is surely not the definition of "last resort" and not in keeping with the US MMPA.
If we obtain further information on the illegal killing of seals at RSPCA Assured salmon farms, 'organic' salmon farms, ASC-certified salmon farms or "responsibly sourced" salmon farms we will pass it on.
Just last month we heard from a whistleblower who told us about a long-standing manager of a Mowi salmon farm who laughed when he killed a seal with a shotgun:
And earlier this month I heard from another whistleblower who told me how on his first day on the job as a young trainee salmon farmer (for another of the big 'Scottish' salmon farming companies) he was instructed to wrap heavy metal chains around the bodies of slaughtered seals so their bodies were never recovered.
Scottish salmon farming is a sector which makes your blood boil.
Thanks,
Don Staniford
Director, Scottish Salmon Watch
If seals are responsible for all the welfare abuse inside salmon farms then surely you should take precautionary measures to avoid attacks (e.g. installing anti-predators nets, closed containment, relocation away from seal areas)? https://t.co/2yoIybNirp
You're seriously suggesting all the damage in your farms is due to seal predation (which could be avoided if you installed anti-predator nets)? It looks like bacterial disease & welfare abuse to me - just like in salmon farms across Scotland https://t.co/wxeU0VUFXv
"Exciting" job opportunity developing @rspcaassured policy in relation to welfare of farmed salmon - must have strong stomach, love seeing dead seals & diseased fish and ideally employed by the salmon farming industry! Deadline for applications is 1 June https://t.co/fCdsMOfBXCpic.twitter.com/rqZgoAcoAl
Download welfare complaint filed against RSPCA Assured Scottish Sea Farms in Loch Spelve (10 May 2021) online here
Download high resolution photos taken on 7 May 2021 at the RSPCA Assured salmon farm operated by Norskott Havbruk (Scottish Sea Farms) in Loch Spelve on the Isle of Mull:
Here's more photos of the filming at Loch Spelve salmon farm on 7 May 2021:
Prior to filming inside the cages at the RSPCA Assured salmon farm in Loch Spelve, Scottish Salmon Watch conducted a safety assessment of the site area ensuring that any Scottish Sea Farms staff had left for the evening:
Biosecurity of our filming equipment and dinghy was conducted prior to filming at the salmon farm:
And we did a video diary of our trip corroborating where and when we filmed.
Before filming in Scotland a through safety assessment and technical trial was conducted using our telescopic pole.
Shocking video footage of welfare abuse at RSPCA Assured Scottish Sea Farms in Loch Creran 'Special Area of Conservation' was published in October 2020:
Please take the pledge to boycott ALL farmed salmon - including RSPCA Assured Scottish salmon marketed by M&S as "responsibly sourced":
Please boycott all 'Scottish' salmon which is controlled by the Norwegian Salmafia!
What infectious diseases & welfare problems did the farmed salmon die from? In March 2021, you reported over 5,000 fish dying due to "Gill health, post bath treatment (Azamethiphos)". How many farmed salmon died at Loch Spelve this year?https://t.co/oZtlH0CRpV
Staniford explained that farmed salmon are often not in very good condition “being crowded into such a tight environment, they get sick, they are attacked by parasites which creep into the flesh above the head: they are called crowns of death” https://t.co/V0o3YfPAkz@ilgiornale
There is a way to know if the salmon we are about to buy has been attacked by parasites: a finger is enough
Valentina Dardari Valentina Dardari
Here's the trick to recognizing if salmon is good Not all salmon are the same. And you have to know if it is good or if it has been attacked by parasites. A report from Le Iene was based on this point, aired on Tuesday 11 May. The alarm was raised by Don Staniford, activist and president of Salmon Watch. Be careful what salmon you buy Salmon consumption has grown exponentially in recent years and, obviously, many farms have been created to meet this demand. However, not all of them, especially the intensive ones, seem to follow the rules carefully and, in the end, it is our health that gets in the way. The conductor Matteo Viviani talked about the quality of the meat and what precautions to follow to avoid unpleasant situations.
Staniford explained that farmed salmon are often not in very good condition. The reason is that “being crowded into such a tight environment, they get sick, they are attacked by parasites. The parasites then creep into the flesh above the head: they are called crowns of death ”. Also, for this reason some salmon farmers "use all kinds of chemicals, artificial dyes in salmon meat, they use organophosphates, medicines to kill parasites." Of course, all these substances then arrive on our table.
Staniford paused to talk about dyes, often used in intensive farming, only to give the salmon to sell a good appearance that would entice the potential buyer to buy it. There would even be a color chart designed to achieve the desired salmon color. The fish closest to the red color would in fact be the most bought, even if the price is higher than the others. Only one in 5 was clean: the trick to recognizing it In the report broadcast, Le Iene wanted to demonstrate the veracity of the activist's words on the ground. Well, out of 5 samples, only one was clean.
Another was less clean but still within the standard, two other not up to standard but still sold thanks to a European law dating back to last year that raised the required limits, and one not up to standard and not salable. There is a way to understand if the salmon we are about to buy is good. As explained at the end of the video, just put your finger in the flesh. If the fish is fresh, our finger will enter without finding any resistance. News a few days ago that the Ministry of Health had a batch of wild smoked Sockeye salmon, produced by Polar Salmon Hjerting Laks, withdrawn. Thanks to the European Rapid Alert System for food and feed Rasff, the "possible presence of Listeria monocytogenes" was reported.
Watch prime time Italian TV (Italia 1) featuring the toxic nature of salmon farming - including video footage shot inside salmon farms in Scotland - online here
Salmon farming really has gone to the dogs - watch last night's Italia 1 expose on 'Le Iene' (translated as "The Hyenas" - the Italian name for Quentin Tarantino's 1992 film 'Reservoir Dogs')https://t.co/yKjkqH4vlA
Secondo Don Staniford: “Essendo ammassati in un ambiente così stretto, si ammalano, vengono attaccati da parassiti. I parassiti poi si insinuano nella carne sopra la testa: le chiamano ’corone della morte’”https://t.co/XzyzAiXyT2
I find that after eating pizza my Italian improves: "Come spiegato nel servizio dall’attivista Don Staniford, dell’associazione Scottish Salmon Watch, in una vasca da 30 metri di diametro possono essere rinchiusi fino a 100.000 salmoni" https://t.co/Ff5RcnDnAH@greenMe_it
They say it's fashionably late to arrive at a party after midnight but I've always been an early bird, ahead of my time. It seems I came to the closed containment party a decade too early. Here's me all dressed up as Captain Condom at a 'Superheroes 4 Salmon' protest in British Columbia in 2011.
A decade later it seems that closed containment is a concept whose time has come.
Artist Anissa Reed nailed it with these cartoons over a decade ago.
Just this week (29 April 2021), Fish Farming Expert reported that Mowi had fitted super-sized lice 'skirts' to their new 160 metre cages and were "tired and grumpy" after they "pulled it off".
Now that's a bloody big skirt Captain Condom would like to get up close and personal to.
Captain Condom was the Director of 'Superheroes 4 Salmon' during 2011 when I was quoted in The New York Times in relation to the spread of Infectious Salmon Anaemia from Norway to Chile via infected ova (eggs).
Captain Condom packed up his cape and rubber hat in 2012 when I relocated to the UK with my now wife (spawning two children in the process) and writing a report on STDs (Salmon Transmitted Diseases) called "Gill Diseases: Scottish Salmon's Dirty Big Secret".
Scottish Salmon Watch is also looking for other superheroes to help save wild salmon and protect the pristine waters around Scotland (these photos are from a Superheroes 4 Salmon protest in Canada in 2011).
Captain Condom and Superheros 4 Salmon's 'Justice League' are hopefully flying into Scotland from Canada (if restrictions and quarantine for Covid-19 permits)!
As a fellow Donald, I've always admired Donald Rumsfeld's philosophy if not his politics (as is the case with another Donald - and I'm not talkiing about a duck).
He was clearly wrong about Iraq's 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' but he was right to question the different facets of our knowledge.
Rumsfeld's reference to knowns and unknowns springs to mind when thinking about our current knowledge - or more appositely, our lack of knowledge - about salmon farming in Scotland. And, as it happens, Scottish salmon's very own weapon of mass destruction in the shape of the toxic neonicotinoid Imidacloprid may have been lurking in a research laboratory at Ardtoe since 2013.
Soon the general public may be afforded the right to know a few more unknowns following a ruling by the Scottish Information Commissioner. By 7 June 2021, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) has been ordered to disclose "commercially confidential" information on Benchmark's 'CleanTreat' water purification system which may or may not include damning information on the banned neonicotinoid Imidacloprid (concealed by the trade name 'Ectosan' and now BMK08).
Yet here we are now just into May 2021 and SEPA has still not published data on the use of toxic chemicals at salmon farms in Scotland beyond September 2020. The latest information available to the public is via the 'Scotland's Aquaculture' database - just click on the CSV Export function and you can download an Excel spreadsheet detailing the use of Azamethiphos, Deltamethrin, Emamectin benzoate, Cypermethrin and Teflubenzuron since 2002.
In November 2020, Scottish Salmon Watch wrote to the Norwegian Government (one of the largest investors in 'Scottish' salmon farming via the Government Pension Fund) and cited examples of multiple chemical use at salmon farms across Scotland (sourced from data published by SEPA) - including:
A glimpse of the toxic nature of salmon farming can be found via Freedom of Information disclosures detailing chemical contamination of pharmed salmon. The Ferret (which manages to ferret out more unknowns than most newspapers) reported in August 2020:
This was not the first time The Scottish Salmon Company has been caught out overdosing on Emamectin benzoate in Loch Roag. The Daily Mail reported in March 2017:
Watch video footage shot by Scottish Salmon Watch during the same night as Seaspiracy visited:
Scottish Salmon Watch also cited 'unsatisfactory' benthic monitoring reports - evidence of waste pollution under salmon farms - in our letter to the Norwegian Government in November 2020 (sourced from data published via 'Scotland's Aquaculture).
SEPA has a mitigating excuse for failing to post data in a timely fashion as cyber-hackers stole 4,000 files on Xmas Eve - so if you're familiar with the far recesses of the Dark Web you may know more than the rest of us.
Thankfully, the public don't need to search the murkiest depths of the Dark Web to find more 'knowns' in terms of hard data on mortalities, diseases, lice infestation, escapes, seals killed and welfare abuse. Last month (23 March 2021), Compassion in World Farming and OneKind published damning video footage shot inside salmon farms between September and December 2020.
Norwegian-owned Mowi put SEPA to shame in terms of the timely reporting of data (although they don't volunteer information on the use of toxic chemicals). In fact, Mowi has already posted data on lice infestation and mortality for the week ending 11 April 2021 whilst SEPA has still not posted October 2020 data.
Censored: Salmon farmers in Scotland refuse to publish numbers of deaths as disclosure is "commercially damaging" https://t.co/FiaGuR3KoG Yet Norway published 2020 data detailing 52 million deaths - why the double standard when Norway owns 80% of 'Scottish' salmon? @ScottishEPApic.twitter.com/S6d45qnsTx
And thanks to various FOI disclosures - including shocking photos disclosed in March 2021 - the public can see the shocking nature of the legal and illegal killing of seals by salmon farms in Scotland.
Thanks to the power of Freedom of Information, here's some of the now knowns about the lethal nature of salmon farming. Here's some of the body bags of dead seals the industry wanted to bury from public view.
As the salmon industry agrees to publish data on disease & deaths, @markruskell warns an export ban is a step closer after regulators & industry were unable to address concerns over seal killings. https://t.co/1BN6t1QKgspic.twitter.com/G7scHXMq1k
You don't need to be an award-winning investigative journalist to discover - just by Googling 'West Sutherland Fisheries Trust' - that Loch Duart funds (along with another salmon farming company, Scottish Sea Farms) West Sutherland Fisheries Trust and is part of their governance structure via Loch Duart's former Managing Director Nick Joy (and I am sure there are other connections which make a mockery of the "independent audit" claim).
A quick look at Loch Duart's records filed with Companies House shows Nick Joy only resigned as a Director of Loch Duart in 2016.
So when Loch Duart claim that the West Sutherland Fisheries Trust is performing an "independent audit" they are talking, like Loch Duart's 'Sustainable' salmon claims, complete and utter bullshit.
Thanks to an annual fish farm production survey published every year by the Scottish Government we know many interesting facts about the 'Scottish' salmon farming industry. Did you know, for example, that just six companies (all foreign owned) account for 99% of salmon farming production in Scotland? Did you know that 90% of the ova (eggs) used to grow 'Scottish' salmon are imported from overseas (Norway, Iceland and Ireland)? Well now you know.
Record numbers of foreign salmon eggs are being imported by Scottish fish farms - @TheGAAIA in today’s Scottish Mail on Sunday: pic.twitter.com/wdACZSgpgh
And readers of The Ferret know more than most people.
As much as 99 per cent of farmed salmon production from Scottish-branded companies is controlled outwith Scotland. Most of the industry is Norwegian, and one major parent company is registered in Jersey, an offshore tax haven.https://t.co/vxzBIgSWYy
Here's the highly dangerous information on The Scottish Salmon Company and the five other foreign-owned companies who together control 99% of 'Scottish' salmon - posted online via 'Scottish Scamon'.
Tracking what's going on inside the murky world of salmon farming is a full-time job for "extreme activists" all over the world.
World Exclusive: What does it take to be labelled an "extreme activist"? I've been called many things - 'eco-terrorist', 'salmon farming nemesis', 'fish farm bogeyman', 'prophet of doom', 'salmon's No.1 enemy' & 'c**t' (I get that a lot). Here's the scoop!https://t.co/lNyg86xk9fpic.twitter.com/pr5hcUqsIU
Alexandra Morton's new book - "Not On My Watch" - is an eye-opener and packs into its 363 pages so many known knowns, unknown knowns and now knowns that Donald Rumsfeld would love it.
And even though there are still a raft of unknown unknowns lurking inside salmon farms, there is more than enough highly dangerous and toxic material out there for Booker prize-winning authors like Richard Flanagan to handle.
A £10,000 reward has been offered for information on the illegal shooting of seals after it emerged Police Scotland and the National Wildlife Crime Unit were passed intelligence reports about a number of killings.https://t.co/opzT3BtGvC
