Salmon farmer dismisses claims of cover-up ahead of MSP visit
'Huge clean-up' was just a normal day's work, says Scottish Sea Farms
Salmon producer Scottish Sea Farms (SSF) has rebutted a
claim from an anti-farming campaign group that it tried to cover up the reality of fish farming by undertaking a huge clean-up
operation at its Dunstaffnage farm, near Oban, seven hours before six MSPs
visited the site.
Animal Equality UK, which promotes a plant-based diet and opposes animal farming, said a video it had obtained clearly shows salmon farm workers retrieving “tonnes of dead fish” from the site ahead of the visit by the members of the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee (RAIC).
But SSF’s head of fish health and welfare Dr Ralph Bickerdike said: “The footage clearly shows our Dunstaffnage farm team following the company’s standard operating procedure with routine pen-side checks and regular moribund and mortality removal.
Duty of care
“Contrary to the claims made by Animal Equality UK, this is an essential part of our duty of care and something we do daily wherever conditions allow, whether we have a farm visit scheduled or not.”
In a press release, Animal Equality mistakenly said that in the days before the visit a treatment boat went from cage to cage “mechanically removing lice from salmon”. A boat was present but was carrying out freshwater treatments ahead of the transfer of some of the fish to another farm.
It also mistakenly said the politicians who visited “form the Holyrood Rural Affairs and Islands Committee”, ignoring three members who were not part of the visit.
Salmon inquiry
The RAIC members were visiting the farm as part of the committee’s inquiry into what progress had been made into implementing recommendations by one of its former iterations, the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee (RECC), in 2018. The 60-plus recommendations were made after the RECC’s earlier inquiry into the salmon farming industry.
A spokesperson for the RAIC said: “We have heard concerns about fish mortality on salmon farms during the wide range of evidence taken throughout our inquiry and this footage raises further questions for the committee.”
