Salmon farm puts £50 price on head of escaped fish

Around 2,000 salmon escaped from a farm run by Rauma Stamfisk in Norway’s Tennfjord in the middle of July.

The Directorate of Fisheries has received several reports on catches and observations of escaped farmed salmon in the Tennfjord in Møre og Romsdal. The fish are believed to originate from Rauma Stamfisk

In view of the stock of wild fish in the area, fishing with nets was prohibited from Friday, 28 June, but rod fishing is allowed and Rauma Stamfisk will give NOK500 (£48) per fish caught and returned within the next 14 days.

Bounty offer

"The bounty offer from the company comes after observations of shoals of about ten fish in the area," said Didrik Vartdal, advisor in the Fisheries Directorate's Aquaculture Inspectorate Section in the Midt region.

After counting was carried out from a wellboat after the incident, it was estimated that more than 2,000 fish were on the run, but the directorate has no overview of how many has been caught so far.

"We know that more people get fish [than we know about]. Some have reported catching up to 11 fish with a rod, but not every fisherman reports to the Directorate of Fisheries, and would like to take the fish home [instead]. So how much is recaptured is uncertain,” said Vartdal.

"The focus now is to get the fish as observed, to limit the damage of the escape,” he adds.

Damage to the nets

The escape was reported to the Fisheries Directorate on Wednesday, July 19, and it was later discovered that there were two holes in the net at Rauma Stamfisk.

“The pen is harvested, and we think the damage to the nets happened during the delivery of the fish,” said Rauma CEO Roger Bekken.

“We had divers inside two days before we were supposed to kill the fish, where the nets were inspected and found in order. So we believe there is a high probability that the holes have come in connection with the supply of harvestable fish.”