2019 Salmon Farming Data Online Now!

Calling all data junkies! Finally (after SEPA fixed their data gremlin), the public can now download mortality, toxic chemical and biomass data for the whole of 2019 – click on CSV Export online here

The damning data reveals exceedance of biomass limits even before the salmon farming industry is shamelessly lobbying to breach the limits due to Coronavirus.

The list of shame is headed by Mowi's appropriately named Isle of Muck salmon farm followed by Mowi's Bagh Dail nan Ceann (Bay of the Dead Heads).

Mowi's 'Bay of the Dead Heads' salmon farm was named and shamed by The Sunday National/Ferret in November 2019.

The newly available data also shows which salmon farms have the biggest mortality problems – again headed by Mowi with 'Bay of the Dead Heads' leading the way with a staggering 1,000 tonnes of dead fish reported in September and October 2019.

8 out of the top 30 worst mortalities (by weight) since 2002 (from when the data is available) occurred in 2019.

Sadly, data on the number of mortalities has not been available since 2012 (when 8.5 million were reported as dead) after the Scottish Salmon Producers Organisation lobbied SEPA that publication would be 'commercially damaging'.

In September 2019, video footage of mortalities at Mowi's 'Bay of the Dead Heads' salmon farm was posted online by diver David Ainsley.

David Ainsley dived under Mowi's salmon farm at Bagh Dail Nan Ceann (in Gaelic it translates as 'Bay of the Dead Heads'):

He videoed dead and dying salmon at the bottom of the cages.

Disease-ridden Mowi (who controversially changed their name from Marine Harvest on 1 January 2019 due to "negative consumer perceptions") owns the salmon farm in the Sound of Jura. Bagh Dail nan Ceann was rated as the joint second worst salmon farm in Scotland in a welfare report by OneKind in 2018 (Mowi's neighbouring salmon farm at Poll na Gille was rated the worst).

Video footage of dead salmon at Mowi's Poll Na Gille salmon farm was posted by David Ainsley in 2017:

Watch BBC Panorama from May 2019 online here

In terms of the use of toxic chemicals, here's the biggest reported uses of Azamethiphos, Deltamethrin and Emamectin benzoate (which peer reviewed science has shown to be lethal to shellfish and other marine life) with Mowi spearheading the way:

Note that this data does NOT include use of toxic chemicals via well boats (read more via Cleaning Tox-Sick Scottish Salmon) and SEPA's 'Scottish Pollutant Release Inventory' shamefully does not even have data for 2018 let alone 2019 online.

If you number-crunch the data since 2002 here's the top 20 largest reported uses – with Mowi's Port na Moine salmon farm in Loch Craignish heading the list with 480 grams of the toxic chemical Deltamethrin used in March 2019:

Here's the top 20 biggest reported uses of Emamectin benzoate – a lobster-killer according to a report by the Scottish Aquaculture Research Forum – since 2002 with Mowi's Greshornish salmon farm in Loch Snizort ranked 4th with 1269 grams used in December 2019:

And here's the top 20 biggest reported uses of the lobster-killing chemical Azamethiphos since 2020 with Mowi's Macleans Nose and Groatay salmon farms represented during 2019: