Mowi's Mass Mortalities Pile Ever Higher

Shocking new data on mortalities on Scotland's disease-ridden salmon farms – slipped out last week by the Scottish Government's Fish Health Inspectorate – is required reading for anyone thinking of eating Scottish salmon this Xmas.

The Excel spreadsheet details mass mortalities up to the end of October 2019 and reads like a bad movie for Mowi (formerly Marine Harvest – who were re-named in January 2019 due to negative consumer perception). Here's the Top 25 (i.e. worst) mortality incidents reported between July and October 2019 led by Norwegian giant Mowi and also featuring Norwegian-owned Scottish Sea Farms, Norwegian-owned Grieg Seafood and The Scottish Salmon Company (formerly Swiss/Ukrainian-owned but recently bought by Faroese/Norwegian Bakkafrost):

During 2019 (up to October), 7 out of 10 of the Top 10 highest mortalities were reported in October with Mowi accounting for 6 out of 10 and Pasteurella skyensis cited in 5 of the cases.

Joe Crowley Tweeted:

Watch Joe Crowley on the BBC One Show's 'The Dead Salmon Run' in December 2017:

And watch footage of a mort pit videoed by Corin Smith featured on the BBC One Show in September 2018:

Last month, Scottish Salmon Watch visited Mowi's disease-ridden salmon farm at Ardintoul.

The Press & Journal reported (1 November 2019): "An estimated 24% of fish were lost at nine sea farms along the west coast and Western Isles over the past four months, according to the firm."

The Sunday National & Ferret reported (10 November 2019):

The rising disease and mortality problems were forecast back in May by Mowi's Health Manager who predicted a "painful" September and October.

In October 2019, Scottish Salmon Watch revealed that Mowi's salmon farm at Ardgour in Loch Linnhe had suffered from up to 55% mortality with disease problems including Cardiomyopathy Syndrome, Pancreas Disease, Heart & Skeletal Muscle Inflammation and Pasteurella skyensis (a bacterium cited in the deaths of 125,000 farmed salmon at Mowi's Isle of Lewis salmon farms in 2017).

In September 2019, Scottish Salmon Watch revealed huge disease problems at Mowi's salmon farm at Kingairloch also in Loch Linnhe (again sourced from a Fish Health Inspectorate report published online) including Cardiomyopathy Syndrome (CMS), Pasteurella skyensis, multifocal hepatic necrosis, Salmonid Alphavirus, anorexia, lesions, haemorrhaging and deformed hearts.

More gruesome photos of welfare abuse and disease problems at Mowi's farm off the Isle of Rum were published online by the Scottish Government on 10 September 2019: