Scottish Salmon's Mort Mountain Piles Ever Higher in 2019

Mortality information for the first six months of 2019 (published this month by the Scottish Government's Fish Health Inspectorate) makes for grim reading for Scotland's disease-ridden salmon farming industry.

197 mortality event reports – which can be downloaded as an Excel spreadsheet online here – detail over 3.1 million dead farmed salmon (38 mortality event reports do not have the number of morts provided). The data includes nearly 200,000 mass mortalities at The Scottish Salmon Company's new salmon farm at Maaey in Loch Uiskevagh (North Uist) which according to SEPA only stocked fish for the first time in March 2019. Here's the top 20 mass mortality incidents officially reported by the Scottish Government at sea cage salmon farms in 2019 (all sites are operated by Mowi and The Scottish Salmon Company):

PD = Pancreas Disease; CMS = Cardiomyopathy Syndrome

The mass mortalities at the Maaey salmon farm were seemingly missed by the Scottish Government's Fish Health Inspectors who followed up on a tip off that there were problems at a salmon farm operated by The Scottish Salmon Company in Loch Uiskevagh – but visited a different salmon farm in Loch Uiskevagh.

Cue Keystone Cops gag.

No wonder SumOfUs is calling for the Scottish Government to conduct immediate unannounced on-the-spot inspections of ALL salmon farms.

Here's further mortalities officially reported during 2019 – again dominated by The Scottish Salmon Company (which is up for sale if any investor is blind enough to take on such a disease-ridden nightmare) but also includes Cooke Aquaculture and Grieg Seafood (whose Skye salmon farms may be up for sale too):

SAV = Salmonid Alphavirus

The data includes nearly 2 million dead salmon in five mass mortalities at hatcheries during 2019 including over 1.5 million at Mowi's Lochailort Recirculation Hatchery in March 2019 and another 89,000 in February 2019:

Mowi's Lochailort Recirculation Hatchery was opened in 2013 by the then First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond.

In October 2018, The Sunday Mail reported that 500,000 farmed salmon had died at Mowi's flagship hatchery at Inchmore – opened only a few months earlier by Scotland's Cabinet Secretary for Rural Economy, Fergus Ewing.

In June 2018, The Sunday Mail reported that 300,000 farmed salmon had died – battered to death in storms – at Mowi's salmon farm at Carradale in Kilbrannan Sound.

The Scottish Government report in relation to the mortality information:

So to be clear – the 197 mortality event reports detailing 3.1 million on Scottish salmon farms for the first six months of 2019 are only the mass mortalities and there could be millions more morts. As Scottish Salmon Watch reported in October 2018 the publication of data on the number of morts ended in 2013 following lobbying from the Scottish Salmon Producers Organisation who argued that disclosure would be commercially damaging.

Also note that data on dead 'cleaner fish' such as wrasse and lumpfish is not collated by the Scottish Government although some historic data was provided via Freedom of Information in August 2018.

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).

When Scottish Salmon Watch visited Mowi's Bagh Dail Nan Ceann salmon farm in early July 2019 there were certainly visible health challenges with dead and dying lumpfish littering the surface of the one cage visited.

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

And here's horrific video footage shot by Corin Smith inside The Scottish Salmon Company's salmon farm at Vacasay in Loch Roag on the Isle of Lewis in August 2018:

No wonder lawyers acting for The Scottish Salmon Company and Scottish Sea Farms threatened legal action if the Scottish Government published photos of disease-ridden Scottish salmon.

In June 2018, The Ferret reported:

Here's photos of the gruesome welfare abuse and disease-ridden conditions to be found on Scottish salmon farms when the Scottish Government's Fish Health Inspectorate actually does pay a visit.

More gruesome photos can be accessed via:

EXPOSED: Gruesome Photos of Deformed & Diseased Scottish Salmon

Hard Evidence: Photos of Diseased & Deformed Scottish Salmon

Scottish Salmon Watch waits with baited bad breath for photos from Fish Health Inspectorate inspections of salmon farms during 2019 – and hopes that the Scottish Government can manage to actually visit salmon farms stocked with salmon.

We know that the Scottish salmon farming industry practices early harvesting – so-called "fast tracking" – to avoid disease problems (and to avoid the inspectors and those pesky campaigners armed with Go Pros). Scottish Salmon Watch reported in May 2018:

Earlier this week, Salmon & Trout Conservation Scotland reported that lice infestation levels had doubled in a single year:

Download the data, photos and videos online here

The publication of new data on Scottish salmon farms is expected next month or in October when Marine Scotland publish their annual fish farm production survey. The latest survey for 2017 (published in October 2018) predicts a drastic 21% fall of 39,000 tonnes from 2017 to 2018.

Scotland's largest salmon farming company, Norwegian-owned Mowi (formerly called Marine Harvest but changed in January 2019 due to negative consumer perceptions), is all too aware of the risks of diseases writing in their Integrated Annual Report 2018 (March 2019) that "continued disease problems may also attract negative media attention and public concerns".

In April 2019, The Ferret reported:

As I stated yesterday in a blog:

"Consumers and investors alike are advised to avoid disease-ridden Scottish salmon like the proverbial plague of boils," said Don Staniford, Director of Scottish Salmon Watch. "Scottish salmon farms are a welfare nightmare which must be closed down immediately. Instead of blindly doubling or even trebling production by 2030 the Scottish Government should revoke salmon farm licences for the worst operators and conduct immediate unannounced site inspections. Disease-ridden Scottish salmon is dead in the water with the situation predicted to get much worse as higher water temperatures exacerbate parasite and pathogen problems."

Watch video reports on morts via: