Update: 17% Mortality at Scottish Salmon in Feb 2021 (down from 35% in Sept 2020)!

 

 

 

 

January and February are traditionally very quiet months for mortality on salmon farms (the lull after the Xmas frenzy and lower water temperatures meaning less disease).   But some salmon farms have harvested out during February 2021 (the latest data currently available via the Scottish Salmon Producers Organisation) revealing shocking levels of mortality at The Scottish Salmon Company's Plocrapool salmon farm (56.% cumulative mortality – that means more than half the farmed salmon died during the sea cage phase of production) and at Mowi's Torridon salmon farm (26.4% cumulative mortality – that means one in every four farmed salmon died during the sea cage phase of production). 

 

SSPO data Feb 2021 17% average

 

SSPO data Sept 2020 35%

 

 

 

 

When Scottish Salmon Watch filmed at Mowi's disease-ridden salmon farm in Loch Torridon in September 2020 we uncovered stomach-churning dead fish (Mowi's lawyers threatened to sue us – yet again – soon afterwards). 

 

 

 

 

 

Photos and 'Case Information' published by the Scottish Government's Fish Health Inspectorate in March 2021 (detailing an inspection in November 2020) reported Heart & Skeletal Muscle Inflammation, Cardiomyopathy Syndrome and Pancreas Disease with "numerous moribunds" which were "displaying lesions, physical damage and were hanging around at the surface" at The Scottish Salmon Company's Plocrapool salmon farm.

 

FHI SSC Plocropol #5 Photo

 

 

 

 

Scottish Salmon Watch reported last month (15 March 2021):

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last month (9 March 2021), Scottish Salmon Watch revealed that Norwegian-owned Scottish Sea Farms failed to report mortality numbers in 61% of 'Mortality Event Reports' since January 2017.

 

 

 

 

According to the data published by the Fish Health Inspectorate on 4 March 2021 (up to the end of January 2021), Scottish Sea Farms are responsible for over half (54%) of the missing reports with The Scottish Salmon Company also failing to provide mortality numbers in over 100 cases.     

 

Mort blog March 2021 #11 Table of %s

 

 

 

 

 

In November 2020, Scottish Salmon Watch estimated that 42 million farmed salmon died in 2019 on salmon farms in Scotland.

 

 

 

 

Last month the Norwegian Fisheries Minister said the deaths of 52 million farmed salmon in Norway in 2020 was "too high".  Meanwhile in secret Scotland there is no published data on numbers of mortalities on salmon farms after the Scottish Salmon Producers Organisation successfully lobbied against disclosure in 2013 arguing that publication would be "commercially damaging".

 

 

 

Read more via:

 

 

 

Scroll to Top