My 5 year daughter's favourite song 'Move It' leaps to mind when thinking about how salmon farming giant Mowi is being forced to move and close down sites.
The move by Mowi (formerly known as Marine Harvest) further offshore to more exposed sites is causing increasing conflicts not to mention welfare problems.
Last month Mowi offered to close down two salmon farms on the West coast of Scotland in exchange for relocation to offshore waters. BBC News reported:
In British Columbia, Canada, Mowi is being forced to close over a dozen salmon farms in the Broughton Archipelago over the next five years with the first wave of closures taking place earlier this year.
Here's a list of the salmon farms targeted for closure:
Read more online here and online here
Salmon Business reported in January 2018:
CHEK News reported in December 2018:
Salmon Business reported in December 2018:
In Ireland too, Mowi is being forced to close down a salmon farm after breaching biomass limits.
And in Chile, Mowi may lose a salmon farm concession following a mass escape.
In Scotland, Mowi's motives for moving out of Loch Duich and Loch Ewe have been seriously questioned. The West Highland Free Press reported last month:
Indeed, recommendations by last year's Scottish Parliament's salmon farming inquiry. The Daily Telegraph reported in November 2018:
Here's some of the recommendations of the Scottish Parliament's Rural Economy & Connectivity Committee report on salmon farming published in November 2018:
In other words, the Scottish Parliament has given salmon farms sited on migratory routes of wild fish a hefty push to move.
Mowi's environmental track record is appalling – especially in Loch Ewe where impacts on the sea-bed have been rated by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency as "Unsatisfactory" for over a decade.
Read more via "Response to MOWI decision to close Loch Ewe salmon farm"
Mowi has polluted the sea-bed under salmon farms across Scotland – including Loch Shell:
The Guardian reported in 2013:
In February 2017, the front page of The Sunday Herald newspaper named 45 lochs contaminated by salmon farms (many owned by Mowi):
The pollute and move on mentality of salmon farming in Scotland (and for that matter in Canada, Norway, Chile, New Zealand, Australia and the United States) is akin to shifting cultivation of the sea.
Watch on BBC Panorama's 'Salmon Farming Exposed'
Or as Professor Rosamond Naylor of Stanford University termed it back in 2002 "slash-and-burn" aquaculture. Since the impacts are on the sea-floor the public do not see salmon farming's shameful impacts – it's a question of out of sight, out of mind. This is salmon farming's silent spring of the sea.
Fish Farmer magazine reported in July 2019:
Mowi Scotland's MD claimed:
Scottish Salmon Watch certainly takes issue with Mowi's claims that "it's been a great success story in terms of the use of cleaner fish". Here's a video report from Mowi's salmon farm at 'Bay of the Dead Heads' in the Sound of Jura:
Read more via "Shocking Video Footage from Mowi's 'Bay of the Dead Heads' (Bagh Dail nan Ceann)"
Nor do Mowi's claims that moving to offshore sites with improve welfare and disease issues. Graphic photos leaked by a whistleblower provided shocking evidence of farmed salmon battered and flayed alive in the 'Beast from the East' storms in March 2018 at Mowi's salmon farm at Carradale in Kilbrannan Sound.
Read more via:
Blowing the whistle on Scottish salmon
Sunday Mail: "Gutted – 300,000 salmon are killed as storm batters fish farm"
In 2012, Mowi (then called Marine Harvest) 'bribed' islanders on Colonsay to establish a salmon farm. The Sunday Herald reported:
The Sunday Herald article by Rob Edwards concluded:
Mowi wasted no time in spreading infectious diseases and mass mortalities at their new salmon farm off Colonsay. The Scottish Daily Mail reported in 2018:
Read more via:
The State of Scottish Salmon Farming in 2018
Mowi's Disease-Ridden Mortalities – 1.6 million+ in 101 incidents (2017-2018)
Nine million killed by diseases at Scotland’s salmon farms
Mowi's salmon farm at Colonsay is already impacting the sea-bed with an "Unsatisfactory" rating by SEPA only a few years after it began operations.
Mowi's Colonsay salmon farm has also officially reported the use of the toxic chemical Azamethiphos (a known lobster-killer) 10 times since 2016:
Mowi has officially reported the use of another lobster-killing chemical another 10 times since 2015:
And another 6 doses of the toxic chemical Deltamethrin since 2016:
Read more on the toxicity and lethality of Azamethiphos, Deltamethrin and Emamectin benzoate via:
New salmon sea lice treatment threshold serves industry not oceans
Fish Farmageddon: Scottish Salmon's Lethal Legacy
Damning Report on Toxic Salmon Farms Buried
SARF098: Towards Understanding of the Environmental Impact of a Sea Lice Medicine–the PAMP Suite
Intrafish reported in 2010 how residents of the small island of Canna (owned by the National Trust for Scotland who have called for a moratorium on salmon farming) voted against Marine Harvest's plan for a new salmon farm (if lobsters and other shellfish had a vote then they'd have voted no too):
The Herald reported in 2010:
Now it seems Mowi cannae (Scottish slang for can't) take no for an answer and have been scouting out locations around Canna. West Word reported in March 2019:
Here's an email from Mowi's Head of Environment Stephen MacIntyre:
From: "MacIntyre, Stephen" <Stephen.MacIntyre@mowi.com>
Date: 7 July 2019
Subject: seabed surveying work
As discussed at our previous meeting with the community on Canna we are planning to undertake additional seabed survey work around the proposed site of the fish farm to assess for any sensitive habitats or features. The survey work is being undertaken by a 3rd party contractors and the intention that the data generated will be made available and presented in the EIA report in due course. To take advantage of a settled spell of weather the work is planned for this coming week. The contractors will not be visiting the island but you may see a vessel operating in the vicinity of the proposed site location for a few days.
There are a number of other surveying requirements that we will need to progress over the next few months, again to take advantage of seasonality requirements and weather, however we will make sure no surveying on the island is done prior to our meeting with the NTS on the 24th July and without further liaison with the community.
best regards
Stephen
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Stephen MacIntyre
Head of Environment
Mowi Scotland Limited
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Mobile: +44 7584 568274
DDI: +44 1397 715071
Mail: stephen.macintyre@mowi.com
Interestingly, Mowi's Head of Environment used to work for the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) – along with the Mowi's Ewan Gillespie (an expert on the impact of salmon farms on maerl beds).
In May 2019, BBC's Panorama reported that Mowi was being investigated by SEPA in relation to chemicals.
Highland Council's web-site holds planning documents in relation to Mowi's plans for Canna.
According to a submission from Marine Scotland Science in August 2019 the benthic impacts will need to be assessed:
A submission by Scottish Natural Heritage in July 2019 included:
Which begs the question: why is Mowi using noisy ADDs at other salmon farms across Scotland?
Read more in a follow up blog next week titled "Mowi Cannae Move to Canna!"