Supermarkets urged to heed lice numbers
Sainsbury’s is being encouraged to stop sourcing salmon produced by Marine Harvest Scotland, due to the high lice numbers experienced at a number of the company’s sites towards the end of last year.
Angling pressure group Salmon & Trout Conservation Scotland (S&TCS) has flagged up statistics that reveal that sea lice figures for the Loch Long and Croe management areas – which include Marine Harvest’s farms at Loch Duich, Loch Alsh and Ardintoul – show that, by December 2015, the levels of lice averaged 6.78 adult females per farmed fish, seven times the Code of Good Practice threshold, despite 8 lice treatments.
Andrew Graham-Stewart, Director of S&TCS, said: “As part of S&TCS’ campaign to highlight the threat to wild salmon and sea trout from the huge numbers of parasites breeding on Scottish fish-farm, we have asked Britain’s leading supermarkets to examine critically their suppliers’ record and reconsider whether they should continue to sell farmed salmon from companies that operate fish-farms highlighted in the S&TCS Report as being in regions of Scotland that have failed to secure proper control of sea lice.
“We spoke to Sainsbury’s in late 2014 and 2015 and received all sorts of reassurances, but their supplier’s farms are still causing serious concern. We don’t want any more ‘warm words’, we need action. If its assurances a year ago are to be taken seriously, we believe Sainsbury’s must now refuse to take fish from farms if sea lice numbers have gone over and stayed over the industry’s Code of Good Practice (CoGP) thresholds for sea lice for any length of time”.
